Reading Percy Jackson and the Lightning thief
by Melanie3356
Summary: The past Olympians reading about Percy Jackson with the future
1. Prologue

Prologue

Hestia's POV

It was winter solace and everyone was arguing, well almost everyone. Apollo and Artemis over's who's older, Hades and Demeter over Persephone, Zeus and Hera over his affairs, Hephaestus and Ares over Aphrodite, who was enjoying her husband and lover fighting over her. Athena wasn't even here so Poseidon was talking to Hermes. Poseidon looked at me and smiled and waved.

We heard humming so figured Athena was here and Poseidon looked happier about that; Poseidon has this **HUGE **crush on Athena, that everyone but Athena knew about. But hide it once the door opened and she walked in. Athena sat down in between Hera and Aphrodite, across from Poseidon. A golden flashed shined and nine teenage kids appeared with a box on the floor.

"You summoned us Lord Zeus?" The blond hair girl asked.

"We don't even know who you ten are." Zeus said.

"Hey I found letter on top of the box." A boy with pale skin said.

The girl with red hair took the letter from him and read it out load.

_"Dear past us,_

_We have sent this ten demi-gods to the past to read about a hero, named Percy Jackson-"_

Poseidon's eyes widen a little bit and he looked worried about something. the girl with blonde hair had tears in her eyes and she sniffled. The girl with black hair hugged her.

_"- it's in his point of view Have fun and no killing any of them for they are important in the Future the titles are Percy Jackson & the Olympians,__The Lightning Thief,__ The Sea of Monsters,__ The Titan's Curse,__ The Battle of the Labyrinth,__The Last Olympian._

_Sign_

_Apollo, and Hermes."_

Everyone looked at Hermes and Apollo who just shrugged.

"Ok than introduce you're selves."

"Nico Di Angelo son of Hades BUT, I was born before the oath and placed into the Lotus Casino and King of ghosts."

Hades nodded and glared at Zeus and Poseidon.

"Clarisse La Ru daughter of Ares drakon slayer."

Ares smirked.

"Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus,Lieutenant of Artemis and this is Athena daughter of Athena and Architect of Olympus ."

"Why is she crying?" Athena worried.

"B-but Zoe?" Artemis asked confused.

"3rd book and her boy friend is missing so she upset." Thalia explained.

"Grover Underwood, Lord of the Wild, Chosen one of Pan, Vice Leader of the Council of Cloven Elders."

Everyone but the demigods was shocked about that.

"Katie Gardener, daughter of Demeter, Counselor of Cabin Four."

"Travis and Conner Stoll Son of Hermes, Co-Head Counselor of Cabin Eleven."

"Chris Rodriguez, son of Hermes."

"Rachel Elizabeth Dare, Oracle of Delphi."

"Hey my Oracle switched bodies and this one moves!" Apollo said.

"Well than start the books." Zeus said.

Rachel took the first book and opened it to the first page. **"Chapter one ****I accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra teacher."**


	2. I accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra t

**Chapter 1**

**Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.**

The demigods nodded.

**If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe what-ever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.**

"That won't work." Katie said

"It might but for a short time period." Athena said.

"Thank-you know it all." Poseidon said.

"Shut up."

**Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.**

"True." Clarisse said.

**If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever if you recognize yourself in these pages-if you feel something stirring inside-stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.**

**Don't say I didn't warn you.**

"He makes it sound like government agents after him." Apollo said.

Artemis smacked him on the head.

**My name is Percy Jackson.**

Annabeth cried and Thalia hugged her and Athena sent a worried glance at them.

Poseidon's eyes widen. _He's my son. _Poseidon thought

"I thought it was Peter Johnson." Dionysus said.

**I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.**

**Am I a troubled kid?**

"Yes." The demigods but Annabeth said.

**Yeah. You could say that.**

Even one but Poseidon and Annabeth laughed.

"He even agree." Nico laughed.

**I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

"Sounds like fun." Athena said.

Annabeth looked a little happy about that.

"No sounds like torture." Poseidon said.

**I know—it sounds like torture.**

Everyone laughed and Poseidon smiled.

**Most Yancy field trips were.**

**But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.**

**Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee.**

"Sounds like Chiron." Hermes noted.

"That's because it is Chiron." Dionysus said.

**You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**

"He really shouldn't fall asleep." Athena said.

**I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.**

**Boy, was I wrong.**

"Yes you were." Annabeth said.

**See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway**

Everyone laughed even Athena chuckled.

**And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim.**

Everyone laughed.

"I like him he's hilarious." Hermes laughed.

**And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.**

"Ah I wanted to hear more that's some funny stuff." Apollo cried.

**This trip, I was determined to be good.**

"Yeah right." Thalia said.

Poseidon paled, which didn't go unnoticed by Athena.

"Percy has a bigger reap for being in trouble more than Hermes kid." Chris laughed.

**All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.**

"Eww." Everyone said.

**Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must have been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled.**

"Hey!" Guess who said that. *cough Grover cough*

**He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should have seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

Everyone laughed as Grover blushed.

"I like them." Grover mumbled.

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

"Mildly entertaining?" Hermes asked.

"Oh this is going to be a good book." Hephaestus said.

**"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.**

"Do it!" Ares and both Clarisse chanted.

**Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."**

"Yeah with grape jelly not, ketchup." Grover said.

**"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."**

"He's got the worst luck ever." Rachel sighed.

**Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there.**

"Oh how would love to meet her." Thalia chuckled darkly with Nico.

**In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

_Oh no._ Poseidon thought paling.

Annabeth paled too and cried a little more.

**Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.**

**He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.**

**It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

"Longer." Artemis said.

"Much longer." Hephaestus said.

"Shut up no one was talking to you." Ares said.

Hephaestus made fire appear around his hands and everyone notice it's hotter and redder then Ares.

"Why don't you shut up peanut brain I was just agreeing with Artemis." Hephaestus said.

"Ok boys no fighting." Hestia said.

Hephaestus breathe and let his flames disappear.

**He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a _stele, _for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperon, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

**Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

_Why is Alecto there?_ Hades thought.

**From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.**

"She's a monster isn't she?" Aphrodite asked.

"Yeah and Percy's first." Nico said

**One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."**

"Grover!" The demigods said.

"Sorry." Grover said sheepishly.

**Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.**

**Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you _shut up_?"**

"How rude." Hera said.

**It came out louder than I meant it to.**

"Of course it did." Thalia said.

**The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.**

**"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"**

**My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."**

"Seaweed Brian." Annabeth cried.

_why is she so upset? _Athena thought. Than Athena remembered when Poseidon paled and figured put who Percy's god parent was and who Annabeth's boyfriend was.

**Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?**

**I know I change this a lot and I'm sorry trying to fix mistakes and I don't**

**I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**

"It had to be that one." The elder Gods goaded.

**"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied.**

**"And he _did _this because ..."**

**"Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god,**

"GOD WHAT AN INSULT!" Zeus yelled.

"Oh give the kid a break, he doesn't seem to know Father." Athena defended.

Poseidon raised an eye brow at her.

_She's defending my son? No she doesn't know he's my son._

**and—"**

**"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.**

**"Titan," I corrected myself.**

"See."

**"And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead.**

"I still don't get how he could confuse Zeus for a rock." Demeter said.

"Simple our baby brother is a rock." Hades smirked.

"I am not a rock!" Zeus said.

"Zeus stop you do look like a rock." Hestia teased.

"Hestia!"

Everyone but Zeus laughed

**And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"**

**"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.**

"You didn't live though it." Hera said paling.

**"—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."**

"Did he just slim down a war that lasted years into a few sentences?" Aphrodite asked.

"Yeah that's Percy for you." Travis said.

**Some snickers from the group.**

"Didn't he get it right?" Aphrodite asked.

"Yes he did." Athena said.

"But mortals are weird like that." Dionysus said.

"I'm sitting right here." Rachel said.

**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"**

"You may never know right Lady Athena?" Travis asked.

"No it most likely won't but still be good to know it." Athena said.

**"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**

"Busted." Travis and Conner, Apollo and Hermes said.

**"Busted," Grover muttered.**

"We think like a goat!" Travis and Conner, Apollo and Hermes said.

"No offense but you four should be lucky to think like me." Grover said.

"HEY!"

Everyone laughed.

**"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.**

**At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

"More like horse ears." Clarisse said.

"Oh how those ears ruined perfectly good pranks." Conner and Travis said.

**I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

**"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

"When do they not?" Artemis asked.

"Now." Chris said.

Artemis pointed to Apollo and Hermes, who were rough housing around.

"Well those two don't count."

**Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."**

**I knew that was coming.**

**I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"**

**Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

"Well not everything." Demeter said.

**"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.**

**"About the Titans?"**

**"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."**

**"Oh."**

"Wrong." Katie said.

**"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."**

"Wow pressure much." Conner said.

**I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever _lived, _and their mother, and what god they worshipped.**

"Sweet." Nico said.

**But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C— in my life. No—he didn't expect me to be _as good; _he expected me to be _better. _And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.**

"Neither would we." The demigods said.

**I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

"He must likely was." Hades said.

**He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.**

**The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

**Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas.**

"Why am I so mad?" Zeus thought out load.

**Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.**

"Yours?" Hera asked.

"Oh Gods no." Hermes said.

Hermes' son's breathed a sigh of relief.

**Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from _that _school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.**

"Not happening." Thalia said.

**"Detention?" Grover asked.**

**"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."**

**Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

"I'm sure that was the right thing to say." Travis said before everyone laughed even Grover laughed.

**I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home.**

"Why can't you all be that way?" Hera asked.

"Our mother died." Apollo, Hermes and Artemis said.

"Father ate mine." Athena said.

"You threw me off Olympus." Hephaestus said.

"I said I was sorry!" Hera and Zeus said.

**She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.**

Clarisse opened her mouth but then she looked at Annabeth who was crying changed her mind.

Poseidon smiled remembering Sally.

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized café table.**

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

"Why that little bitch" Thalia said.

"Thalia!" Zeus and Artemis scaled.

"What? She is."

**"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.**

"Turn off." Travis said eating a strawberry.

"Where'd you get those?" Katie asked.

"Kitchen."

"Oh."

"Want to share?"

"Yeah." Katie moved beside Travis and shared the strawberries.

_Cute._ Aphrodite thought.

**I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**

"POSEIDON!" Hades and Zeus yelled.

"YES I HAD ANOTHER SON DEAL WITH IT!" Poseidon yelled.

"Continue please, Rachel." Athena said.

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"**

**"—the water—"**

**"—like it grabbed her—"**

**I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.**

**As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"**

**"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."**

"Never guess your punishment ever." Chris said.

**That wasn't the right thing to say.**

**"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

**"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. _I _pushed her."**

"Loyal and sweet." Aphrodite said winking.

Grover blushed red.

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

**"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

**"But—"**

**"You—_will_**—**stay—here."**

**Grover looked at me desperately.**

**"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

**"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "_Now_."**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.**

"Not better than mine." Ares said.

The demigods shivered.

_Yeah it is._ They thought.

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

**How'd she get there so fast?**

_Oh this is going to be interesting. _Hades thought.

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

**I wasn't so sure.**

**I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

"WHAT?!" Poseidon yelled.

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

**Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

"Not good." Apollo said.

Poseidon paled.

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.**

**Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...**

**"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

**I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

"Wow." Thalia said.

"Percy's not good at holding his tough." Annabeth explained.

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

**The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

**She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

"Please tell me right." "Poseidon asked.

**I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."**

**Thunder shook the building.**

"Zeus." Poseidon growled.

**"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

"What on earth is she talking about?" Artemis asked.

"Don't know." Hades said.

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

**All I could think of was that the teachers must have found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room.**

"Again I like your son." Hermes said.

**Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on _Tom Sawyer _from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

Athena rolled her eyes.

_I love those eyes. _Poseidon thought dreamily.

**"Well?" she demanded.**

**"Ma'am, I don't..."**

**"Your time is up," she hissed.**

**Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

"Hades." Poseidon growled.

**Then things got even stranger.**

**Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

"A pen ha-ha what's that going to do?" Ares laughed, before getting splashed by Poseidon.

**"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

**With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

"Oh man that sounds like fun." Conner said.

**Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

**My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

"Wimp." Ares said.

"Oh leave him alone it was his first fight, if it was a fur… Kindly one I would've done that." Clarisse said.

**She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

"She really needs to stop the honey thing it's getting creepy." Nico said.

Everyone agreed.

**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan.**

**She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

"I hate that feeling." Nico said.

**I was alone.**

**There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.**

**Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

"The mist." Hera said.

**My hands were still trembling. My lunch must have been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.**

"Magic mushrooms oh my gods." Travis laughed.

**Had I imagined the whole thing?**

"No Seaweed Brain."

**I went back outside.**

**It had started to rain.**

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

"Who?" Poseidon asked.

**I said, "Who?"**

**"Our _teacher._** **Duh!"**

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.**

**She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

**I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.**

**He said, "Who?"**

**But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

"Never hesitate." Hermes said.

"Got it." Grover said.

**"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."**

**Thunder boomed overhead.**

Athena paled bit figuring it out. _Someone stool Father's lightning bolt._

**I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.**

**I went over to him.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."**

**I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

**"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

"Now Chiron can lie." Chris said.

**"The other chaperon. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

"Oh that's going to mess with his head." Travis laughed.


	3. Three old ladies knit the socks of death

Poseidon's POV

That's it who's next?" Rachel asked.

"Make Mr. D read." Travis said. Everyone turned to see he fallen asleep.

"Someone wake him up." Athena said.

I turned his cheer into water. Dionysus fell on the floor and everyone laughed even Athena smiled.

_So beautiful._

"Dionysus you've been voted to read the next chapter." Zeus said as Rachel tossed him the book.

"Fine what chapter?"

"Two the chapter is marked."

Dionysus opened the book to the mark page. "**Three old ladies knit the socks of death**."

"I'm really not going to like this am I?" I asked.

"Death?" Nico and Hades asked.

**I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly.**

"I bet it would be weird." Apollo said.

**This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me.**

"That would be funny." Hermes said.

"No it wouldn't Hermes." Poseidon and Annabeth said.

"I would too!" Conner and Travis said.

**The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.**

**Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.**

"He is but in a good way, tell him I said that and you get it." Clarisse said glaring at Travis and Conner.

**It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed.**

**Almost.**

"Bet Grover couldn't fool him." Thalia said.

**But Grover couldn't fool me.**

Everyone laughed for Thalia called it.

**When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, and then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.**

**Something was going on. Something **_**had **_**happened at the museum.**

"Yeah, you fought a monster," Nico said.

**I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.**

"Poor child," Hestia said.

**The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room.**

"ZEUS/DADDY!"

**A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.**

**I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs.**

"He really is your son Seaweed Brian." Athena said.

Annabeth got up and ran pout crying. Athena got up and ran after her after shrinking to human size.

"Why she do that?" Ares asked.

...

"You can't tell us that?"

...

"Read."

**I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.**

**Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot.**

Dionysus creaked a smile and everyone was confused on what it meant.

"What does that mean?"Rachel asked.

"Ask Athena later." Demeter said.

**I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.**

Everyone laughed.

**The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.**

**Fine, I told myself. Just fine.**

**I was homesick.**

"What a baby." Ares laughed.

"Ares be quit." Hera snapped.

**I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**

The future demigods but Grover were confused.

"Paul doesn't gamble." Thalia said.

"This was before Paul." Grover growled.

**And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view** **of the woods outside my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend,**

"I'm his best-friend?" Grover asked happily.

**even if he was a little strange.**

"Hey!" Grover shouted.

**I worried how he'd survive next year without me.**

"Your son is sweet." Hera said.

"Sure is." Poseidon said proudly.

**I'd miss Latin class, too—Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.**

**As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for.**

"Well that's a start." Thalia laughed.

**I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.**

**The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the **_**Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology **_**across my dorm room.**

"Good thing Athena's not here." Hermes said.

**Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon,**

Grover whispered something to the demigods who nodded.

**or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**

"I hate those." The demigods moaned.

**I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.**

Travis and Conner laughed while Katie glared at them.

**I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. **_**I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.**_

**I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.**

"Good." I said.

"Oh Athena I thought you ran after your daughter." Hades teased.

Everyone but me laughed.

**I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.**

"How sweet he wants to impress old house man." Ares laughed.

"Ares." Hera snapped.

**I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.**

**I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said,**

**worried about Percy, sir."**

"Annabeth is too." Thalia whispered to the demigods.

**I froze.**

**I'm not usually an eavesdropper,**

"Riiiight." Hermes and his sons said.

**but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.**

"I would too." Hermes said.

"I think everyone would." Hephaestus said.

**I inched closer.**

**"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the **_**school**_**! Now that we know for sure, and **_**they **_**know too—"**

**"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."**

"Much more." Nico joked.

**"But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead line—**

**"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."**

**"Sir, he **_**saw **_**her... ."**

**"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."**

**"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."**

"You don't blame yourself still right?" Thalia whimpered.

"No"Grover said.

Thalia smiled happily.

**"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall—"**

**The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.**

"And he drops the book." Hermes sighed.

**Mr. Brunner went silent.**

**My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.**

**A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.**

"Why was in his real form?" Hera asked.

"That wheel chair would make anyone want to stretch out." Grover said.

**I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.**

**A few seconds later I heard a slow **_**clop-clop-clop, **_**like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, and then moved on.**

**A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.**

**Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."**

**"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..."**

**"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."**

"I hated that, while at school." Grover groaned.

**"Don't remind me."**

**The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.**

**I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.**

**Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.**

**Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.**

**"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"**

**I didn't answer.**

**"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"**

**"Just... tired."**

"Liar." Hermes said.

**I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.**

"It didn't work." Grover said.

**I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.**

**But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.**

**The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam,**

"Three hours, no way not doing it too long." The demigods complained.

**my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.**

**For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.**

**"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."**

"Oh this is going to go bad." Hermes said.

"You think?" Apollo said.

**His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.**

"Is she in love with him?" Aphrodite asked.

"How are we to know you're the goddess of love honey." Hephaestus sighed.

"Oh right."

**I mumbled, "Okay, sir."**

**"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."**

**My eyes stung.**

"Wimp," Ares whispered.

I splashed him with ice cold water.

**Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.**

**"Right," I said, trembling.**

**"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be—"**

**"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."**

"Ouch." Conner said.

**"Percy—"**

**But I was already gone.**

**On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.**

**The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were **_**rich **_**juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.**

"We aren't nobodies." I said.

**They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.**

**What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.**

**"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."**

**They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.**

"Well that was rude." Aphrodite said.

"That's mortals for you." Artemis said.

"Again right here." Rachel said.

**The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had,**

"Well I had to watch over him didn't I?" Grover asked as everyone looked at him.

**so there we were, together again, heading into the city.**

**During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen.**

**Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.**

**Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.**

**I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"**

"Nearly scared my hooves off," Grover complained.

**Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha—what do you mean?"**

**I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.**

**Grover's eye twitched. "How much **_**did **_**you hear?"**

"GROVER!" Thalia yelled.

"DON"T EVEN HE KNEW SO WHY LIE?!" Grover yelled.

**"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"**

**He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers …"**

"Demon math teachers," Nico laughed.

"Oh she'll love that." Hades chuckled.

**"Grover—"**

**"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were over stressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..."**

**"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."**

"Couldn't have said it better myself," Hermes.

**His ears turned pink.**

"Like they are now," Rachael pointed out.

Everyone laughed.

**From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer.**

**The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:**

"Fancy script?" Zeus question.

"It's fun to see them try to read it." Dionysus said.

_**Grover Underwood**_

_**Keeper**_

_**Half-Blood Hill**_

_**Long Island, New York**_

_**(800)**_ _**009-0009**_

**"What's Half—"**

**"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address."**

**My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.**

"Like I want to." Grover said.

**"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."**

**He nodded. "Or...or if you need me."**

**"Why would I need you?"**

"Harsh." Travis said.

**It came out harsher than I meant it to.**

"Hey I think like good old Percy." Travis said.

**Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you."**

**I stared at him.**

**All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me.**

**And here he was acting like he was the one who defended **_**me.**_

**"Grover," I said, "What exactly are you protecting me from?"**

**There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs.**

**The driver cursed and steered the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.**

**After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.**

**We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.**

"I could really use some" Demeter started.

"HURRY CONTINUE!" Hades yelled.

**The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice ****There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.**

Grover shuddered.

**I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.**

**All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.**

"THE FATES!" I yelled. "Oh no no no no…"

"Brother I'm sorry no one should see them." Hades said patting my back.

**The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.**

"Good thing Annabeth isn't here she'll be miserable." Katie said.

Everyone nodded.

**I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.**

**"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man—"**

**"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"**

**"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"**

"For once, this is the wrong time to joke," Travis shivered.

**"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."**

**The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.**

**"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."**

**"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."**

**"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.**

"Why didn't you drag him Grover?!" Thalia shouted.

"I'm sorry I-I don't know what to do, the fates are impossible to run from, and I don't think they would let us go if he didn't see this!' Grover cried.

**Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that **_**snip **_**across four lanes of traffic.**

Most people flinched.

**Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for—Sasquatch or Godzilla.**

Everyone chuckled.

**At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.**

**The passengers cheered.**

**"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"**

**Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.**

"Why, why ,why?!" I asked worried.

**Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.**

**"Grover?"**

**"Yeah?"**

**"What are you not telling me?"**

"Everything." Clarisse said.

**He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"**

**"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"**

"Worse, much worse," Hades said.

**His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."**

**"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."**

**He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost—older.**

"Observant." Zeus noted.

**He said, "You saw her snip the cord."**

**"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.**

"Huge deal Percy," Hephaestus said.

**"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."**

Thalia looked down and mumbled 'Sorry Grover.'

**"What last time?"**

**"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."**

**"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"**

**"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."**

**This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.**

"Some promise that was," Grover grumbled.

**"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.**

**No answer.**

**"Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"**

"Please tell me it's not my son." I moaned.

**Again everyone shivered.**

**He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.**


	4. Grover Unexpectedly Loses his Pants

With Athena and Annabeth:

"Annabeth wait!" Athena said running after her daughter.

Annabeth kept running and didn't stop until she reached Demeter's rose garden. Annabeth fell to her knees and cried into her hands. Athena caught up and got to her knees and hugged her daughter closer to her. Annabeth wrapped her arms around her mother's neck and cried.

"I-I want Percy back!" Annabeth cried.

"I'm sorry I don't know what I said to up set you but I'm sorry." Athena whispered.

"I-it was Seaweed Brain, I-I call him that!"

"I'm sorry I didn't know, I won't call your boyfriend it anymore.

"H-he's not my..."

"I figured it out Anna, if it helps, I will allow it for now."

"M-Mom?"

"Yes?"

"C-could you stay with me please?"

"I'm not going to leave you'll stay and help I promos."

Annabeth tightened her grasp around Athena. Athena picked her up easily and sat down on the bench near a tree and held her daughter as she cried. Athena rocked back and forth slowly humming and rubbing Annabeth's back. Foot steps told Athena they weren't alone. She looked to see Poseidon and Thalia.

"Hey." Thalia said.

"Hello."

"How is she?" Poseidon asked.

"Better than when she ran off, Poseidon our children are dating."

"What makes you say that?" Thalia asked nervously.

"She told me when I stated it."

"Oh."

"Fine by me." Poseidon said.

"New chapter?"

"Yeah."

"You ok Anna?"

"Y-yeah Mom."

"Do you want to stay or go back ?"

"Go back to."

"Ok."

Athena strode up lifting her daughter who moved to hugged her tighter and they walked off to the throne room to join the others. Once they got there they sat down. Zeus shot a look when she sat down with the demi gods.

"Father, I proposed I'd stay with her and I tend to keep it, and you all should shrink to human size." Athena explained.

"Very well."

Everyone shrunk to human size.

"Who wants to read next?" Dionysus asked.

"I will." Zeus said.

Dionysus passed the book to him and he opened to the right page. **"Grover Unexpectedly Loses his Pants."**

**Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.**

"Idiot why would he do that?" Thalia asked.

"Please read Lord Zeus." Grover said.

**I know, I know. It was rude.**

"At lest he knows." Hera said.

**But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?"**

"Ok I see why he ditched." Thalia said.

**Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom.**

"Good always wait for the right moment." Hermes said.

**Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.**

**"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.**

**A word about my mother, before you meet her.**

"Cool." Nico said.

"Amazing." Thalia said.

"Fantastic." Annabeth sniffed.

"Beautiful." Poseidon said remembering Sally.

**Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck.**

"How?" Katie asked.

**Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her.**

"ZEUS!" Aphrodite threw her lip gloss at him but he dogged.

"Missed." Zeus said. Hera smacked his head.

"Ow." Zeus rubbing his head. Hera smiled sweetly and innocently. Zeus glared as everyone laughed.

**She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for****a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.**

"I don't get how she was able to fall for old kelp face here." Athena pointing at Poseidon. The sea god glared as everyone laughed.

"ha-ha very funny owl-face."

**I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because **_**it **_**makes her sad. She has no pictures.**

"Aww she still loves you." The love goddess cooed.

**See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.**

**Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.**

"Impressive she lied and told the truth." Hermes said.

**She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.**

"No he's not." Nico said.

**Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano,**

"Is that the first step father?" Thalia asked.

"Yeah." Grover growled.

**who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him,** **then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nick named him Smelly Gabe.**

"Did he really smell that bad?" Ares asked.

"Yeah I can smell him from here." Grover said.

"Eww gross." The goddess said.

**I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.**

Everyone was a little green.

**Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along ... well, when I came home is a good example.**

Annabeth moved closer to her mother.

**I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.**

"Sounds like Ares' basement." Hephaestus said. Everyone laughed.

"Hey my basement is clean now thank you!" Ares said.

"Yeah right." Hermes said.

**Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."**

**"Where's my mom?"**

**"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"**

"I'm going to blast him." Poseidon growled.

**That was it. No **_**Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?**_

**Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tusk less walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.**

**He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.**

Olympus started to shack, the ground spiting and Athena put Annabeth down beside her got up and shakily walked over to Poseidon and hugged him.

"Clam down Poseidon, I'm sure Percy got back at him for what he did." Athena said.

Poseidon calmed down and blushed as Athena tightened her grip before going to sit back down beside Annabeth, who put her head on Athena's lap. Athena played with her hair, and told Zeus to continue.

**"I don't have any cash," I told him.**

**He raised a greasy eyebrow.**

"Pig." Artemis said.

**Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should have covered up everything else.**

"That's why." Athena said.

"Why what?" Conner asked.

"Sally married Gabe, to cover Percy's scent , to keep him save, because he's Fish face's son, his scent will make monsters come from all over to kill him."

"Oh and what does 'old sot' mean?"

"It means old drunk, why?"

"It was brought up last chapter and no one knew what it meant so we thought you would know."

"Dionysus knows what it mean, seeing as I call him it, when ever he gets drunk."

Everyone looked at Dionysus. "What? She does call me an old sot." Dionysus said.

**"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"**

"Wow he figured out something with Math." Conner said.

**Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."**

"At lest he has a heart." Hera said.

**"Am I **_**right**_**Gabe repeated.**

**Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.**

Again everyone looked a little green.

**"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."**

"Done." Hermes and Dionysus said.

"You bring nice?" Demeter said.

"Hey only I can make their life hard."

**"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"**

"You're no better!" Clarisse snapped.

**I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study."**

"I doubt that." Athena and Annabeth said.

**He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.**

"Gross, just gross." Guess who.

**I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.**

"I rather stay here Hestia makes it more homey." Hermes said.

"Thank-you Hermes." Hestia smiled.

**Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, ****or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.**

Everyone shivered.

**But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic—how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone—something—was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.**

_I'm must have been really made over something._ Hades thought.

**Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"**

**She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.**

"Ahh." The goddesses cooed.

**My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room.**

_Wish it was like that here. _Hera thought sadly. Hephaestus heard his mother and thought into her head.

_I forgive you._

Hera smiled at Hephaestus who smiled back.

**Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad.**

"I need to say hi to her one day, She did a good job raising my son." Poseidon said.

**I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.**

**"Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"**

"I miss being taller than him." Annabeth mumbled.

**Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.**

"Lucky!" Travis and Conner said.

**We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?**

"Hey are you boys ok?" Hermes asked his sons.

"I'd be better if we were just reading together." Travis said.

"Sorry, but we'll have some fun on the way Kay?"

"YEAH!" Conner and Travis said.

**I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.**

"Boys." The girls said.

**From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"**

"Get your own bean dip." Ares growled. "I don't like this guy one bit."

"For once I agree with him." Hephaestus said.

**I gritted my teeth.**

Many people did the same thing.

"Ass hole." Nico said.

"Nico language." Hades said.

"But he is."

"I know that's why I'm dealing with when he dies personally."

Hades and Nico shared an evil smirk and everyone edge way from the plotting dead people.

**My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should have been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.**

"Or a god" Apollo winked at Poseidon.

**For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself.**

**I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.**

**Until that trip to the museum**

**um ...**

**"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"**

**"No, Mom."**

"No lying!" Hermes said. Everyone was shocked.

"Never lie to your mother, others lie to."

"Okay you scared me for a minute there." Apollo said.

"Yeah." The others agreed.

"Sorry." Hermes said sheepishly rubbing the back of his head.

**I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.**

'It wouldn't to Sally." Annabeth mumbled.

"She knew everything about us being real." Thalia said.

"You told a mortal?" Zeus asked.

"No clear sighted she figured it out." Poseidon said.

**She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.**

**"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."**

"Beach?" Poseidon asked.

**My eyes widened. "Montauk?"**

"Montauk?" Poseidon asked beaming happily.

"Yes why?" Zeus asked.

"That's where I meet Sally in the first place, I wouldn't think she's still go there."

**"Three nights—same cabin."**

**"When?"**

**She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."**

**I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.**

"If he's stop gambling there would be." Demeter said.

**Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"**

"I'll give you bean dip right up your ass." Athena said.

"Athena." Zeus said.

"Oh were in big trouble wise-girl cursed." Apollo said.

Annabeth flinched, which Athena felt.

"What's the matter Anna, why'd you flinch?" Athena asked.

"Percy calls her wise girl." Katie expanded.

**I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.**

**"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."**

**Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"**

"He better let you go." Poseidon growled.

"He did, Lord Poseidon." Grover said.

**"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."**

**"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."**

"Nice she would bribe me to let her go easily." Hermes said.

**Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"**

"What!" Aphrodite yelled.

"I'll take you shopping later!" Hephaestus said.

"Kay."

**"Yes, honey," my mother said.**

**"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."**

**"We'll be very careful."**

**Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."**

"He paid for it!" Clarisse yelled.

**Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.**

"DO IT!" Everyone yelled even Hestia yelled it.

**But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.**

**Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?**

**"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."**

**Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.**

**"Yeah, whatever," he decided.**

**He went back to his game**

"Good." Hestia said.

**"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"**

"I wonder how she found that out?" Conner asked.

"Bet Chiron told." Katie said.

**For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes—the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride—as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.**

**But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.**

"Wish I was there." Travis said.

"Why?" Demeter asked.

"To put some hot sauce in the dip."

"Nice." Hermes said proudly.

**An hour later we were ready to leave.**

**Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking—and more important, his '78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.**

**"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."**

"Like he'll be the one driving." Hades and Nico said.

**Like I'd be the one driving.**

"Now Hades and Nico think like the boy!" Rachel said. Hades and Nico laughed with the others.

**I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.**

**Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair case as if he'd been shot from a cannon. Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.**

"Sweet how'd he do that?" Thalia laughed.

'I don't know but Gabe got what was coming to him!" Nico laughed.

**I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.**

**Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets,**

Athena and Annabeth shuddered.

**and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.**

"I drought that would stop him." Artemis said.

"It won't stop me." Poseidon said.

**I loved the place.**

**We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.**

"How romantic." The goddess of love cooed.

**As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.**

"They trait you get when you hook up with Brother." Hades and Zeus said before glaring at each other.

**We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.**

"Ok what's with the blue food that's my color?" Zeus asked.

**I guess I should explain the blue food.**

"That would be nice."

"Honey you're talking to a book." Hera said. Zeus glared at Hera who smiled.

**See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.**

"And there's the streak." Athena said.

"What streak?" Chris asked.

"Every God has a streak that attracts them to a mortal well not Artemis and Hestia, Poseidon's is rebellious."

"Oh cool."

**When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash.**

Cue glares at Zeus. "Sorry." Zeus mumbled.

**She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.**

**Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk—my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.**

**"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."**

"You know now that you mention it Thalia is the only child with my features." Zeus said.

"Nico is the same." Hades said.

"I think the Fates did that on purposes." Hestia said.

**Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."**

**I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.**

"I don't care about that."

**"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... when he left?"**

**She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."**

**"But... he knew me as a baby."**

"Yep." Poseidon said.

"YOU VISITED?!" Zeus yelled..

"Yep and you can't stop me from doing it again."

**"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."**

**I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.**

**I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me...**

**I felt angry at my father.**

Poseidon looked down sadly.

"He does feel that way anymore Lord Poseidon." Thalia said.

Poseidon smiled.

**Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.**

Poseidon flinched.

**"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"**

**She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.**

**"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."**

**"Because you don't want me around?"**

"Ouch!" Travis said.

Hera glared.

**I regretted the words as soon as they were out.**

"Good!"

**My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I—I**_**have**_**to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."**

"CAMP HALF BLOOD!" The demigods yelled.

**Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said—that it was best for me to leave Yancy.**

**"Because I'm not normal," I said.**

"Good demigods rule mortals drool but Rachael." Nico said.

"And our family." Thalia said.

**"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."**

**"Safe from what?"**

"My idiot brothers maybe." Poseidon growled. Hades and Zeus glared at their older/younger brother.

**She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.**

**During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.**

"Why?" Hermes asked.

"Checking up." Poseidon said.

**Before that—a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.**

"Hera." Poseidon growled.

"Don't look at me." Hera said hands in the air.

"I didn't know he was born so not me." Athena said as everyone looked at her.

**In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.**

**I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.**

"That'll put her in danger." Demeter said.

**"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."**

Hera smiled at the bond between Percy and his mother.

**"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"**

**"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."**

**My head was spinning. Why would my dad—who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born— talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?**

"Good question."

**"I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."**

**"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..."**

"For most." Clarisse said.

**She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.**

**That night I had a vivid dream.**

"I hate those dreams." The demigods groaned.

**It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.**

"Now what?" Hestia asked her younger brothers. The two brothers shrugged

**The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.**

"Hades." Hermes guessed.

Hades shrugged.

_Not Dad._ Nico thought.

**I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed,**_**No!**_

"Ha I win." Zeus said. Poseidon stuck his tongue out.

**I woke with a start.**

**Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.**

"Now what's got you into you?" Athena asked.

"Well I did just poke him in the eye." Zeus smirked. Poseidon glared.

**With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."**

**I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.**

**Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.**

"Monster?" Travis asked.

"No." Grover said.

**My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.**

**Grover stood framed in the doorway**

"MONSTER RAN FOR YOUR LIVES!" Travis and Conner yelled running away as Grover ran after them.

"GET BACK HERE TRAVIS AND CONNER!" Grover yelled.

Everyone laughed when Grover caught them and sat on them after tackling them to the ground.

**against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.**

"Oh I see." Athena said.

"Yeah me too."Artemis said.

**"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"**

"He wasn't that what." Nico said.

**My mother looked at me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.**

**"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"**

"Oh about everything." Rachel said.

**I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.**

_**"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!"**_**he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you **_**tell **_**her?"**

**I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on—and where his legs should be ... where his legs should be ...**

"What come on!" Conner said.

"Dude you know what." Grover said. Conner stuck his tough out.

**My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before:**_**"Percy.**_**Tell me**_**now**_

**I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.**

**She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you.**_**Go**_

**Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.**

Grover smiled.

"Grover rocks." The demigods said.

Grover blushed.

**Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.**

A golden light shinned blinding everyone and shouting was heard.


	5. My Mother Teaches me Bullfighting

The light died down and Chiron along with seven other people were standing there.

"There you all are I was worried sick about you, I turn my back for a minute and you're gone." Chiron said.

"Blame Apollo and Hermes not us" The demigods but Annabeth said.

Chiron glared at Apollo and Hermes before sighing.

"Introduce yourselves I don't think they know who you are."

"Leo Valdez, son of the amazing Hephaestus."

Hephaestus nodded smiling at his son.

"Piper McLean, daughter of Aphrodite."

Aphrodite smiled.

"Jason Grace, son of Jupiter."

"Wait what is a Roman doing with the Greeks?" Apollo asked.

"The future's messed up." Clarisse said.

"Reyna, daughter of Bellona, Praetor of the Twelfth Legion, Senator of New Rome."

"Do you happen to know a bot named Percy Jackson?" Thalia asked.

"Yes, he's at camp, he can't stop talking about you, he says he miss you all, especially a girl named Wise-girl, who ever that is."

"It's Annabeth, she'll be happy to hear that when she wakes up." Athena said.

"Sally Jackson, Percy's mother."

"Paul Blofis, Percy's step-father."

"Chris Rodriguez son of Hermes."

"Welcome, now who want's to read next?" Zeus asked.

"I will, father." Athena said.

Zeus tossed his daughter the book. She opened it to the right page. "**My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting**."

Grover put his head down and whimpered.

"So.. you know how to bull fight?" Apollo asked.

"No." Sally whimpered.

"I'm not going to like this chapter am I?" Paul and Poseidon asked paling.

"No." Grover cried.

**We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.**

"I like how you drive." Ares grinned.

**Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane,**

"You are insane." Leo said.

"And you aren't?" Jason asked.

**or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants.**

"Who would want those." Piper said.

**But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo— lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.**

**All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"**

"I do now." Grover smiled at Sally who smiled back.

**Grover's eyes flitted to the rear view mirror, though there were no cars behind us.**

"What is following them?" Poseidon asked worriedly

...

"Please."

"You'll find out." Thalia said.

**"Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."**

"Grover's a stalker!'' Connor yelled.

Katie slapped him upside the head.

**"Watching me?"**

"STALKER!" Travis yelled.

Katie slapped him up side the head.

**"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I am your friend."**

**"Urn ... what are you, exactly?"**

''Subtle" Piper said.

**"That doesn't matter right now."**

**"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"**

"GOAT!" Grover yelled.

**Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!"**

**I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.**

**"Goat!" he cried.**

**"What?"**

**"I'm a goat from the waist down."**

"You just said it didn't matter." Thalia said.

**"You just said it didn't matter."**

Everyone laughed as Thalia looked horrid.

**"Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you under hoof for such an insult!"**

"Didn't he take on a satyr once?" Clarisse asked.

"Yeah." Grover sniffed.

**"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"**

"Myths" Zeus scoffed

**"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"**

**"So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!"**

"Let it go!" everyone sighed.

**"Of course."**

**"Then why—"**

"Let it go Seaweed Brain." Annabeth said waking up.

"How you felling?" Athena asked.

"Tired."

**"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."**

**"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?"**

**The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail**.

Everyone paled.

**"Percy," my mom said, "There's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."**

**"Safety from what? Who's after me?"**

**"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."**

"Hey!' Hades said.

"Sorry."

**"Grover!"**

**"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"**

"Yes, please drive faster!" Poseidon begged.

**I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.**

"Says the guy who thinks magic mushrooms exist." Hermes snorted.

Everyone laughed.

**My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.**

"They're almost there." Katie sighed

**"Where are we going?" I asked.**

"Safety!" Demeter yelled.

**"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."**

**"The place you didn't want me to go."**

**"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."**

**"Because some old ladies cut yarn."**

"It sounds funny and ridiculous when you say it like that" Leo snorted.

Piper slapped him upside the head.

**"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."**

"GROVER!" Everyone yelled.

"SORRY!" Grover yelled.

**"Whoa. You said 'you.'"**

**"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"**

**"You meant 'you.' As in me."**

**"I meant you, like 'someone.' Not you, you."**

"Huh?" Everyone asked.

"I was there and I'm still confused about you two." Sally said.

Grover blushed and rubbed his head smiling.

**"Boys!" my mom said.**

"Thank you!" Artemis yelled.

**She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.**

**"What was that?" I asked.**

**"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question.**

**"Another mile. Please. Please. Please."**

"Please please, please!" Poseidon said.

**I didn't know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.**

Everyone was leaning forward now.

**Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human. She'd meant to kill me.**

"No Shit!" Thalia yelled

**Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded.**

"WHAT HAPPENED?" Poseidon asked.

**I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.**

"Ouch!" Nico said.

**I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."**

**"Percy!" my mom shouted.**

**"I'm okay..."**

**I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead.**

Poseidon released his breath.

**The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.**

**Lightning.**

"ZEUS/FATHER/DADDY!" Poseidon, Athena and Thalia yelled. Zeus flinched.

**That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"**

**He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!**

"That's sweet." Aphrodite said.

**Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.**

Everyone smiled and grinned.

**"Percy," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.**

Poseidon tensed again.

**I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head.**

"It's not a blanket." Athena said.

**His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.**

"No way that was his second monster" Leo asked shocked.

**I swallowed hard. "Who is—"**

**"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."**

"Yes, please go!" Everyone said.

**My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.**

**"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"**

"Oh, look it's me" Thalia smiled

"You were a tree?" Jason asked

"Long story." Thalia and Grover said.

**"What?"**

**Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.**

**"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."**

**"Mom, you're coming too."**

"I'm afraid she cannot hero." Hestia said sadly.

Everyone looked down.

**Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.**

Poseidon winced

**"No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover."**

"Grover smiled at Sally and mouth 'thank-you.'.

**"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.**

"Ugh! Shut up goat boy!" Connor said

**The man with the blanket on his head**

"How much slower can he get?" Clarrise asked

**kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he couldn't be holding a blanket over his head,**

**because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns …**

''Finally." The demigods said.

**"He doesn't want us," my mother told me. "He wants you. Besides, I can't cross the property line."**

**"But..."**

**"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."**

**I got mad, then—mad at my mother,**

Sally looked down a little.

"He loves you and you know it Sally." Paul said.

Sally smiled and kissed his cheek and put her head on his shoulder.

**at Grover the goat,**

**I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."**

Athena, Artemis and Hera nodded approval. Again

**"I told you—"**

**"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."**

Poseidon smiled.

**I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.**

**Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.**

"You should really start to mow the-"

"READ!" Hades and Nico yelled.

**Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under wear**

"Did it just say underwear?" Hestia asked.

"Yes." Athena said.

**I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms**

Everyone laughed.

**—which would've looked funny,**

"It is funny!" Hermes laughed.

**except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.**

**His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.**

"Only he would think that at a time like this" Chris snorted.

**I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.**

"Oh he's real all right and he's going to kill you." Ares smirked before getting slapped by Aphrodite.

**"Pasiphae's son," my mother said.**

Athena looked impressed. _'Poseidon chosen a wise woman for once.'_

**"I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."**

"Poseidon glared at Hades and Zeus.

**"But he's the Min—"**

"Idiot" grumbled Clarrise

**"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."**

All of the Olympians looked impressed now.

**The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.**

**I glanced behind me again.**

**The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows—or not looking, exactly.**

"He's smelling for them." Athena said.

"Oh." Everyone said.

**More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.**

**"Food?" Grover moaned.**

"Grover." Conner said.

"Shut up." Travis said.

**"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"**

**"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."**

"You really are smart." Athena said.

"Thank-you, Lady Athena." Sally smiled.

**As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage.**

Everyone paled.

**He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.**

**Not a scratch, I remembered Gabe saying.**

"Oops." Everyone said.

**Oops.**

Everyone laughed.

**"Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way— directly sideways.**

Everyone nodded.

**He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"**

**"How do you know all this?"**

**"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me.**"

**"Keeping me near you? But—"**

**Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.**

"Shit." Jason whispered, but everyone heard him.

**He'd smelled us.**

"Double Shit!" Thalia said

**The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter. The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us. My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."**

**I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right**

"Of course she's right." Hera said

**—it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.**

Everybody wrinkled their noses.

"Gross" Piper and Reyna said.

**He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.**

Everyone held their breath in.

**The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing.**

**So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.**

Everyone sighed in relief.

**The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother,**

Grover looked down and cried.

**who was setting Grover down in the grass.**

**We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.**

**The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother,**

Everyone paled.

**who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.**

**"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"**

**But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her.**

Paul hugged Sally closer to him as she cried.

**She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.**

"NO!" Paul and Poseidon yelled.

**"Mom!"**

**She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"**

**Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone.**

Just then a massive earthquake hit Olympus. They looked at Poseidon, who was shaking with anger. He was glaring at Hades.

"POSEIDON STOP, SHE RIGHT HERE!" Athena yelled holding Annabeth, so she wouldn't fall to the ground.

Olympus stopped shaking, but Poseidon continued to glare at Hades.

**"No!"**

**Anger replaced my fear. New found strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.**

"Percy's going to kick some bull ass!" Hermes said.

**The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.**

**I couldn't allow that.**

"He's really loyal." Reyna noted.

"Yeah." Travis said.

**I stripped off my red rain jacket.**

"Oh no..." the demigods who knew Percy groaned.

**"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"**

Apollo chuckled. Artemis rolled her eyes.

**"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.**

**I had an idea**

"We're doomed" Connor said

**—a stupid idea,**

"They're always stupid." Nico said.

**but better than no idea at all.**

"I guess it makes sense." Jason said.

**I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.**

**But it didn't happen like that.**

"It never happens like that." Thalia said.

**The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.**

**Time slowed down.**

**My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.**

"Nice." Ares and Clarisse said.

**How did I do that?**

"That's what we were wondering." Apollo said

**I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.**

"Ouch!"

**The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.**

"Why do monsters have to be so repulsive?" Aphrodite and Piper asked.

**The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.**

**Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up,**

"Us too." The demigods said. Grover pouted.

**but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.**

"Ow." Rachel said

**"Food!" Grover moaned.**

"Why can't I shut up?" Grover asked.

**and rage filled me like high-octane fuel.**

"Now he's pissed off." Conner said.

**I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might.**

"Not gonna happen." Ares smirked.

The demigods looked at each other before, smirking.

**The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—_snap!_**

"You were saying Ares." Poseidon smirked along with the other demigods.

**The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock.**

+Sally flinched not liking this chapter at all.

**When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.**

"Cool." Piper said.

**The monster charged.**

"Not cool." Jason said.

**Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.**

"Wow" Hephaestus said.

"Luck kill." Ares muttered

**The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.**

**The monster was gone.**

"Sweet." Leo and Reyna said.

**The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open.**

"Not a good feeling." Zeus groaned.

**I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish.**

Sally cried a little bit.

**I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm house. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover—I wasn't going to let him go.**

Everyone smiled.

**The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's.**

"Most be one of my daughters." Aphrodite said.

**They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."**

**"Silence, Annabeth,-**

Everyone snickered.

**"-the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."**


	6. I Play Pinochle With a Horse

"Who wants to reads next?" Athena asked.

"I will." Aphrodite said.

Athena passed the book to Aphrodite and she opened it to the right page.

"**I Play Pinochle With a Horse**." Chiron stomped his hooves. Everyone all laughed a little bit.

**I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.**

"That's a weird dream even for him." Clarisse said.

**I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.**

**When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"**

"That's what we want to know." Zeus said looking at demigods.

...

"Read."

**I managed to croak, "What?"**

"Yes what?" Hera and Hephaestus asked.

"Read."

**She looked around, as if afraid someone would over hear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"**

"What was stolen?" Ares asked.

...

"Come on give us a hint at least."

"Think about it." Was all the said.

**"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't..." Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.**

"Nice way of getting him to shut up." Conner said.

**The next time I woke up, the girl was gone.**

"He missed her already?" Aphrodite asked.

Annabeth blushed and nodded.

**husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes- at least a dozen of them- on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.**

"Argus." Hera smiled.

**When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries.**

"Kind of like Demeter." Hades said.

"Is that a compliment or insult?" Demeter asked.

"For once a compliment."

"Oh thank you."

Hades mouth insult to everyone but Demeter making them snicker.

**There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.**

"Ouch." Thalia said.

**On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry. My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it."Careful," a familiar voice said. Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week.**

"Two days but whose counting." Grover mumbled.

**Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover, Not the goat boy.**

"Not you too." Grover said.

"Goat boy!" The Demi gods said hugging Grover.

"Guys can't breathe." They backed off.

"Sorry."

**So maybe I'd had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And...**

"Sorry not the case this time." Hestia said sadly.

**"You saved my life," Grover said. "I... well, the least I could do ... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this." Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.**

"Why would he want a shoe box?" Travis asked.

"I think it's what's inside of the box." Chiron said.

**Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.**

"Does he still have it?" Hermes asked.

"Last time I checked he did." Nico said.

"Boys listen up." Hermes' kids looked up at him. "No stealing his Mom lost her life because of that monster let him have it and never, never think about taking it understand?"

"Sir yes sir." The boys faked saluted.

**"The Minotaur," I said.**

"Percy." Nico groaned.

"He just lost his mother Death boy leave him alone!" Clarisse said.

"Sorry."

**"Urn, Percy, it isn't a good idea-" "That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull."**

"Like to live on the edge does he?" Hades asked.

"Oh yeah." Nico said.

"It's going to be interesting watching him grow up I dare say I'm going to have fun with this."

**Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?" "My mom. Is she really ..." He looked down.**

A moment of silents was held for Sally Jackson.

**I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight**

"What's that suppose to mean?!" Thalia asked.

**My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.**

"Wow... that's deep." Apollo said.

"Yeah." Everyone agreed.

**"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm- I'm the worst satyr in the world**

"ARE NOT!" The Demi gods yelled.

**He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.**

**"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.**

Thunder boomed. "Ohh Grover cursed." Travis said.

"Shut up like you don't cruse ether." Grover said.

**Thunder rolled across the clear sky.**

**As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it.** **Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head.**

"Dude..." Conner said.

"Conner don't try and shave Grover's head!" Chiron said.

**But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs. All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.**

**I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with ... Smelly Gabe?**

"No don't even think about it Percy." Annabeth said.

**No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I'd do something.**

"I drought he'll get away with that." Ares snorted.

**Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid- poor goat, satyr, whatever- looked as if he expected to be hit.**

**I said, "It wasn't your fault."**

**"Yes, it was. I was supposed to **_**protect **_**you."**

**"Did my mother ask you to protect me?"**

"No." Grover said.

**"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least... I was."**

**"But why ..." I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swimming.**

**"Don't strain yourself," Grover said. "Here." He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips.**

**I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies.**

"I taste Cake." Thalia said.

"I taste nachos." Nico said.

"Olives." Athena said.

"Fish." Poseidon said.

"Meat." Ares and Clarisse said.

"Ok enough of that." Demeter said.

**And not just any cookies- my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.**

"The relationship with his mother is strong." Hera said.

**Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.**

**"Was it good?" Grover asked.**

**I nodded.**

**"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.**

"He always feel guilty." Thalia said.

**"Sorry," I said. "I should have let you taste."**

"NO!" Grover yelled.

**His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just... wondered."**

**"Chocolate-chip cookies," I said. "My mom's. Homemade."**

**He sighed. "And how do you feel?"**

**"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards."**

"That's good." Apollo said.

**"That's good," he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff"**

**"What do you mean?"**

**He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."**

"Oh good now we can see how he sees us." Chiron and Dionysus said.

**The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.**

**My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.**

**As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.**

"I love that place." The demi gods said.

**We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture**

"It was." Annabeth said.

**an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.**

**Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.**

**The man facing me was small, but porky.**

**He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels- what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park.**

"WHAT I DO NOT!"

Everyone laughed at the description.

**He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could have out-gambled even my step father.**

"A two year old can out gamble that man." Hermes said. Everyone agreed with him.

**"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite.**

"That wasn't polite one bit." Dionysus mumbled.

"No but it was funny." Chiron said.

"Chiron!"

**The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper,**

"Now girl-friend." The demi gods said.

Aphrodite squealed with joy.

**but she's been here longer than just about anybody.**

"True." Grover said.

**And you already know Chiron..."**

**He pointed at the guy whose back was to me.**

**First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.**

**"Mr. Brunner!" I cried.**

"I just said Chiron." Grover said.

**The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers **_**B**_

"You would Chiron." Athena said.

Chiron laughed.

**"Ah, good, Percy," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle."**

**He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."**

"You really hate it there don't you?" Zeus asked.

Dionysus nodded.

**"Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther away from him because,**_**if**_**there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.**

"I'm not a stranger." Dionysus said.

**"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl.**

**She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now."**

"You guys really need to clam your kids, I mean there's too many at my cabin and I can't make more room right now so please people clam you kids." Hermes said.

"I clam mine at birth so." Athena said. Apollo, Ares, Aphrodite and Demeter snapped their fingers and their kids were calmed.

"I clam mine as soon as they get to camp." Hephaestus said..

"Thank-you."

**Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron."**

**She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking.**

"Oh yeah much more athletic then you." Katie said.

**With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image.**

"What's that's supposed to mean?" Athena asked.

"He still thinks you're beautiful, just not the normal eye color for California girl." Poseidon said.

Athena blushed which nobody notice for she put her head down and looked at Annabeth.

**They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty,**

"See." Poseidon said.

**but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.**

"I bet she was." Clarisse snickered.

**She glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say,**_**You killed a minotaur!**_**or **_**Wow, you're so awesome!**_**or something like that.**

"Yeah right Percy." Nico and Thalia said.

**Instead she said, "You drool when you sleep."**

Everyone laughed at that.

**Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.**

"Oh's he's so cute." Guess who.

"I know, that's why I love him." Annabeth said walking up.

"You ok?" Athena asked.

"Yeah."

**"So," I said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"**

"Nice way of breaking the ice." Nico laughed.

**"Not Mr. Brunner," the ex-Mr. Brunner said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."**

**"Okay." Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And Mr. D ... does that stand for something?"**

"Drunk, dork, stop me when you here a winner." Apollo said. The demi gods laughed.

**Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason."**

"Agreed." The gods said.

**"Oh. Right. Sorry."**

**"I must say, Percy," Chiron-Brunner broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."**

**"House call?"**

**"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to ... ah, take a leave of absence."**

"What did you do?" Hades asked. asked.

"Oh nothing much." Chiron said.

"Dude I've meet him in the underworld he's crazy." Nico said. Everyone looked at Chiron, who chuckled.

**I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.**

**"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked.**

"Ego." Nico said.

**Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first.**

**We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test.**

"Which I failed at." Thalia whimpered.

**"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"**

"He gets your name right?" Hephaestus asked.

"Yeah." Grover asked.

**"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.**

"Oh maybe because he'll vaporize me." Grover said.

**"You **_**do **_**know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me suspiciously.**

**"I'm afraid not," I said.**

**"I'm afraid not,**_**sir**_**," he said.**

**"Sir," I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less.**

"So do we." Chris whispered and the demi gods laughed before getting shut up by Dionysus' glare.

**"Well," he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all **_**civilized **_**young men to know the rules."**

"Do you know how to play football?" Travis asked.

"Yes everyone here loves it, well not Aphrodite." Dionysus said.

"Dude you have to play with us all of you, it might be fun."

"All right." Travis high-five Conner.

**The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile.**

**Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was,**_**I **_**was his star student. He expected **_**me **_**to have the right answer.**

"I do that for all the kids. Chiron said.

**"Percy," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?'**

**"She said ..." I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."**

Everyone was silent for a minute than continued.

**"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"**

Aphrodite took off her show and threw at Dionysus. "OW!" The shoe hit his forehead.

"Nice shot." Hephaestus said.

"Thank-you." Aphrodite blushed.

**"What?" I asked.**

**He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.**

**"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."**

**"Orientation film?" I asked.**

"It's a pretty cool film." Conner said.

**"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know-" he pointed to the horn in the shoe box- "that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods- the forces you call the Greek gods- are very much alive."**

**I stared at the others around the table.**

**I waited for somebody to yell,**_**Not!**_**But all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.**

**"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"**

**"Eh? Oh, all right."**

"Aww that was sweet of you." Hera said.

Dionysus blushed.

**Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.**

**"Wait," I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as god."**

**"Well, now," Chiron said. "God- capital**_**G**_**, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."**

**"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about-"**

**"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."**

"Smaller?" The gods asked. Chiron whistled innocently.

**"Smaller?"**

"You all think like Percy." Katie laughed.

**"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class."**

**"Zeus," I said. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them."**

"I really wish they would say Olympians, makes me feel left out." Artemis said. Apollo patted her back.

"Sorry sis."

"Stop calling me sis."

**And there it was again-distant thunder on a cloud less day.**

**"Young man," said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you."**

"And so he should." Zeus said.

**"But they're stories," I said. "They're- myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."**

"He knows this now." Nico said.

**"Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"**

"Dude he said his name right." Clarisse said.

"I know." Chris said.

**-I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody- "what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals- they have absolutely no sense of perspective.**

Rachel sighed.

**They think they've come**_**so-o-o**_**far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."**

**I wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if... he wasn't.**

"I'm not." Dionysus said.

"Could have fooled us." Apollo said.

"Do you want to be drunk for three years?"

"NO!" Apollo yelled.

"Than be quit."

Zeus sighed. "Read Aphrodite."

**It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.**

**"Percy," Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that**_**immortal**_**means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"**

_He wanted Annabeth more._ Thalia thought.

**I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate.**

**"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," I said.**

**"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that someday people would call**_**you**_**a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"**

"Ouch." Travis said.

Chiron sighed. "I didn't mean it like that."

**My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I said, "I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods."**

**"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."**

"Oh I love to see you all try he can beat a g... neither mind." Nico said.

"No finish son." Hades said.

...

"Read Aphrodite." Artemis said.

**Grover said, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock."**

"Thank you Grover." Poseidon said.

"You're welcome Lord Poseidon." Grover said.

**"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe.'"**

**He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.**

"Son." Zeus warned.

"Sorry."

**My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.**

**"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."**

**Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.**

"Notice how it said feigned." Athena said.

"Yes he is close isn't he." Zeus glared.

**"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"**

**More thunder.**

**Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.**

**Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."**

"That's a nice way of putting it." Chris laughed.

**"A wood nymph," I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.**

**"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time- well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away- the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha.' Absolutely unfair."**

"Yeah for us." The demi gods said.

**Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.**

"He is." Zeus said.

**"And ..." I stammered, "your father is ..."**

_**"Di immortales,**_**Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course."**

**I ran through D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs that all seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master.**

"No our boss." Grover said.

**"You're Dionysus," I said. "The god of wine."**

Dionysus smiled.

**Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?"**

**"Y-yes, Mr. D."**

**"Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"**

Aphrodite glared and threw her shoe at his head again.

**He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait-jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.**

"I'm not so laid back as Apollo or Hermes." Dionysus said.

"Oh very true." Hermes said.

**"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.**

**"No. No, sir."**

**The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."**

"Hey I won for once." Dionysus said happily.

"Not quite, Mr.D." Chiron said.

**"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said.**

Everyone laughed.

**He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."**

"Neither minded."

**I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He got up, and Grover rose, too.**

**"I'm tired," Mr. D said.**

"Sore loser much?" Artemis asked.

Dionysus ignored her.

**"I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk,**_**again,**_**about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."**

"Grover rocks." The demigods said.

**Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."**

**Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners."**

"You should talk." Hades said.

**He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.**

**"Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.**

Grover again smiled sadly, missing his best friend.

**Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been ... ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."**

**"Mount Olympus," I said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?"**

"Slow."

**"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."**

**"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like ... in **_**America**_

"Can we skip this part?" Ares asked.

"No." Hermes phone rang. He took it out.

"Hermes you have a package to deliver." Martha said.

"Ok let me have the package." A package appeared in his hand. Hermes flew off to deliver the package.

"Ok so I'll read it but no interrupting at all and it'll get done faster." Aphrodite said.

"Fine." Ares said.

**"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West."**

**"The what?"**

**"Come now, Percy. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know- or as I hope you know, since you passed my course- the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps- Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on- but the same forces, the same gods."**

**"And then they died."**

**"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture.**

**People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not- and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either**

**- America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."**

**It was all too much, especially the fact that **_**I **_**seemed to be included in Chiron's**_**we,**_**as if I were part of some club.**

"Now I want to start a club." Apollo said. Artemis smacked on the head.

**Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.**

**"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to 'meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be smores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."**

Everyone laughed as Chiron blushed softly.

**And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.**

**I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.**

**"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."**

"That's then end." Aphrodite marked the page.


	7. I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom

"Why don't we go to lunch and continue afterwords." Hera said.

Everyone got up and went to the dinning hall for lunch. Travis picked up the book and opened it to the right chapter. **"I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom." **Travis said.

Clarisse groaned while the others laughed. Chris grabbed her hand.

**Once I got over the fact that my Latin teacher was a horse,**

Chiron stomped his hooves.

**we had a nice tour, though I was careful not to walk behind him. I'd done pooper-scooper patrol in the Macy's Thanksgiving** **Day Parade a few times,**

Chiron shock hidshead no while smiling at the boys silliness.

**and, I'm sorry, but I did not trust Chiron's back end the way I trusted his front.**

"I know the feeling." Nico agreed.

Chiron shock his head while laughing a little bit.

**We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the minotaur horn I was carrying. Another said, "That's **_**him**_**." Most of the campers were older than me. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare shaggy hindquarters. I wasn't normally shy,**

"Yeah right" Thalia and Nico snorted.

**but the way they stared at me made me uncomfortable. I felt like they were expecting me to do a flip or something.**

"Can he do a flip?" Apollo asked.

The future demigods and parents shrugged. "We don't know."

**I looked back at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than I'd realized—four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. I was checking out the brass eagle weather vane** **on top when something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct impression I was being watched.**

The demigods shuddered.

"Oh gods I hate that feeling." The demigods shivered.

**"What's up there?" I asked Chiron.**

**He looked where I was pointing, and his smile faded. "Just the attic."**

**"Somebody lives there?"**

**"No," he said with finality. "Not a single living thing."**

"Well, I guess that's true." Annabeth said.

"But I thought Rachel was the oracle." Leo asked.

"I'm the newer one." Rachel said.

"Oh." Piper and Jason said.

**I got the feeling he was being truthful.**

**But I was also sure something had moved that curtain.**

**"Come along, Percy," Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now a little forced. "Lots to see."**

**We walked through the strawberry fields,**

"Travis smiled dreamily and the others minis Katie snickered.

**where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune on a reed pipe.**

**Chiron told me the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus. "It pays our expenses," he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort."**

"It takes no effort at all" Katie smiled proudly.

**He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes,**

**but Mr. D was restricted from growing those,** **so they grew strawberries instead.**

"I like strawberries better." Demeter said.

**I watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with music.**

"Well I got better at it." Grover said as everyone snored.

**I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.**

**"Grover won't get in too much trouble, will he?" I asked Chiron. "I mean ... he was a good protector. Really."**

"He was and he is." The demigods said.

**Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horses back like a saddle. "Grover has big dreams, Percy. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable.** **To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill."**

"He did that!." The demigods said.

**"But he did that!"**

"He did."

**"I might agree with you," Chiron said. "But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide.**

"They can't do anything right." Artemis said.

**I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate ... ah ... fate of your mother.**

"Well he did get Percy safely to camp." Piper said.

"Yeah he just had to carry Grover." Leo said.

**And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover's part."**

The demigods huffed.

**I wanted to protest. None of what happened was Grover's fault. I also felt really, really guilty. If I hadn't given Grover the slip at the bus station, he might not have gotten in trouble.**

"He blames himself for everything." Nico said.

**"He'll get a second chance, won't he?"**

Annabeth, Thalia, Grover and Athena winched.

"It was his second chance." They said.

**Chiron winced. "I'm afraid that **_**was **_**Grover's second chance, Percy. The council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago.**

**Olympus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age..."**

**"How old is he?"**

**"Oh, twenty-eight."**

"Satyrs age faster than humans." Grover, Chiron and Dionysus said.

**"What! And he's in sixth grade?"**

**"Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Percy. Grover has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years."**

"That's horrible" Piper exclaimed

**"That's horrible."**

Everyone laughed.

**"Quite," Chiron agreed. "At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career..."**

"Yeah god of wild." Clarisse said.

**"That's not fair," I said. "What happened the first time? Was it really so bad?"**

"He Just had to bring it up" Thalia whimpered.

**Chiron looked away quickly. "Let's move along, shall we?"**

"You need to learn how to change the subject better Chiron." Hermes laughed.

**But I wasn't quite ready to let the subject drop. Something had occurred to me when Chiron talked about my mother's fate, as if he were intentionally avoiding the word **_**death.**_

Sally winced and Paul hugged her.

**The beginnings of an idea—a tiny, hopeful fire—started forming in my mind.**

"Oh no." Poseidon said.

"What?" Everyone asked.

"He's planing on visiting his Uncle." Hades smirked.

**"Chiron," I said. "If the gods and Olympus and all that are real ..."**

**"Yes, child?"**

**"Does that mean the Underworld is real, too?"**

"Told you." Hades said.

**Chiron's expression darkened.**

**"Yes, child." He paused, as if choosing his words carefully. "There is a place where spirits go after death. But for now ... until we know more ... I would urge you to put that out of your mind."**

_And that worked so well didn't. _Chiron thought.

**"What do you mean, 'until we know more'?"**

**"Come, Percy. Let's see the woods."**

**As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.**

**Chiron said, "The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed."**

**"Stocked with what?" I asked. "Armed with what?"**

Everyone rolled their eyes.

**"You'll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?"**

**"My own—?"**

"Did you really think that Percy had his own armor?" Travis asked.

"You''ll be surprised Travis." Chiron said.

**"No," Chiron said. "I don't suppose you do. I think a size five will do. I'll visit the armory later."**

**I wanted to ask what kind of summer camp had an armory, but there was too much else to think about, so the tour continued. We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn't seem to like very much),**

**the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheatre, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.**

**"Sword and spear fights?" I asked.**

Ares and Clarisse smirked.

**"Cabin challenges and all that," he explained. "Not lethal. Usually.**

**Oh, yes, and there's the mess hall."**

**Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.**

**"What do you do when it rains?" I asked.**

"I asked the same thing." Nico said.

"Well you still eat don't you?" Demeter said.

**Chiron looked at me as if I'd gone a little weird.**

**"We still have to eat, don't we?" I decided to drop the subject.**

Everyone laughed.

**Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them,**

"Twelve?" Jason asked "But-"

"Long story" Annabeth said.

**nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen.**

The gods smiled at this.

"Bizarre huh?" Hephaestus grin.

**Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right),**

"Who knew Kelp Head knew a little math?" Thalia chuckled.

**they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory.**

Hephaestus and Leo smiled.

**Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass.**

Demeter and Katie smiled.

**Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at.**

"GO APOLLO CABIN!" Apollo cheered.

**They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (which were more my speed).**

"Me too" Jason said.

**In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined fire pit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick.**

All the gods smiled.

Hestia smiled. "He saw me."

"Hestia rocks." Hermes said smiling at his favorite aunt.

Everyone agreed.

**The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve.**

Zeus smirked.

**polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them.**

"That's cool, bet I could make them look real and flash like the real stuff too." Leo said.

"His you're son all right." Zeus said.

"I know he's he great?" Hephaestus asked.

**Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.**

Hera smiled while the demigods glared.

**"Zeus and Hera?" I guessed.**

**"Correct," Chiron said.**

**"Their cabins look empty."**

**"Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two."**

"We do!" Jason and Thalia said hugging.

**Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot.**

"We kinda are, we represent the cabins." Poseidon said.

"I'm shocked Fish-face, you know something." Athena smiled.

Poseidon glared at her as everyone laughed.

**Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?**

**I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.**

Poseidon beamed.

"Of course he would." Hera said.

**It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one,**

Zeus smirked at Poseidon, who rolled his eyes at him.

**but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor.**

"They were" Poseidon smiled.

**I peeked inside the open doorway and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!"**

"Oh leave him alone." Poseidon said.

"With all respect my Lord I didn't know at the time he was your son." Chiron said.

**Before he could pull me back, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk.**

Poseidon smiled again.

**The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down.**

"I love how he had beds and we didn't." Jason said.

**But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely, I was glad when Chiron put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Come along, Percy."**

**Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.**

**Number five was bright red—a real nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists.**

Ares and Clarrise smiled, pleased with how their cabin looks like.

**The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared.**

Ares and Clarrise smirked once more.

**The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer. She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking,**

"Darn right, I am" Clarrise smirked.

**and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.**

**I kept walking, trying to stay clear of Chiron's hooves. "We haven't seen any other centaurs," I observed.**

**"No," said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk,**

"THEY ROCK!" Apollo, Hermes, Travis and Conner yelled.

Artemis and Katie smacked them against the head.

**I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here."**

**"You said your name was Chiron. Are you really ..."**

**He smiled down at me.**_**"The **_**Chiron from the stories? Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yes, Percy, I am."**

"Hercules sadly yes." Chiron said.

**"But, shouldn't you be dead?"**

**Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. "I honestly don't know about **_**should **_**be. The truth is, I **_**can't **_**be dead.**

**You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish ... and I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed."**

"And you'll always be needed Chiron." Athena said.

Chiron and Athena shared a smile.

**I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn't have made my Top Ten Things to Wish For list.**

**"Doesn't it ever get boring?"**

**"No, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring."**

**"Why depressing?"**

**Chiron seemed to turn hard of hearing again.**

**"Oh, look," he said. "Annabeth is waiting for us."**.

**The blonde girl**

"Seriously?!" Annabeth asked.

**I'd met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven.**

**When we reached her, she looked me over critically, like she was still thinking about how much I drooled.**

"Nope." Annabeth said.

**I tried to see what she was reading, but I couldn't make out the title. I thought my dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn't even English. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek.**

Everyone chuckled.

**There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book.**

"It was." Annabeth said.

**"Annabeth," Chiron said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Percy from here?"**

**"Yes, sir."**

**"Cabin eleven," Chiron told me, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home."**

Hermes and the Stolls smiled.

**Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on **_**old.**_

"HEY!" Hermes and the Stolls yelled.

**The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it...?**

"A caduceus" Hermes muttered

**A caduceus.**

Hermes blushed as everyone laughed.

**Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.**

Hermes looked down sadly.

**Chiron didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.**

**"Well, then," Chiron said. "Good luck, Percy. I'll see you at dinner."**

**He galloped away toward the archery range.**

**I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at me, sizing me up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.**

Poseidon frowned.

**"Well?" Annabeth prompted. "Go on."**

**So naturally I tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of myself.**

Everyone busted out laughing.

**There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything.**

**Annabeth announced, "Percy Jackson, meet cabin eleven."**

**"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.**

**I didn't know what to say, but Annabeth said, "Undetermined."**

**Everybody groaned.**

Most of the gods looked down guiltily.

**A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward.**

**"Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there."**

The Stolls growled, while the others frowned.

**The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile.**

The Stolls growled even loader.

**He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different-colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.**

**"This is Luke," Annabeth said, and her voice sounded different somehow. I glanced over and could have sworn she was blushing.**

"I was _not_!" Annabeth huffed.

**She saw me looking, and her expression hardened again. "He's your counselor, for now."**

**"For now?" I asked.**

**"You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."**

**I looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given me. I had nothing to put there to mark it as my own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag. Just the Minotaur's horn. I thought about setting that down, but then I remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves. I looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly,**

"HEY!" the Stolls huffed.

**some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.**

"Everyone check your pockets." Annabeth said.

Everyone checked their pockets and found some things missing.

"Travis, Conner/ Hermes give it back." Everyone said.

Hermes, Travis and Conner all tossed wallets, watches back to their owners.

**"How long will I be here?" I asked.**

**"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."**

**"How long will that take?"**

Hermes and his son frowned and looked at the other gods.

"Clam you're kids please." Hermes said.

**The campers all laughed.**

**"Come on," Annabeth told me. "I'll show you the volleyball court."**

**"I've already seen it."**

**"Come on." She grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind me.**

**When we were a few feet away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that."**

"Somebodies in trouble!" The Stolls laughed.

**"What?"**

**She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one."**

"Oh he's the one alright."

**"What's your problem?" I was getting angry now. "All I know is, I killed some bull guy—"**

**"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"**

**"To get killed?"**

**"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?"**

**I shook my head. "Look, if the thing I fought really was **_**the **_**Minotaur, the same one in the stories ..."**

Everyone rolled their eyes.

**"Yes."**

**"Then there's only one."**

**"Yes."**

**"And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right?**

"Did it just say, gajillion?" Hera asked.

"Yes."

... Everyone laughed.

**Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So ..."**

**"Monsters don't die, Percy. They can be killed. But they don't die."**

**"Oh, thanks. That clears it up."**

**"They don't have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky.**

"Which he isn't." Rachel said.

**But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them arche types. Eventually, they re-form."**

"I hate it when they do that!" The demigods said.

**I thought about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword—"**

**"The Fur ... I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."**

**"How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?"**

**"You talk in your sleep."**

Everyone laughed.

**"You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"**

Hades smirked.

**Annabeth glanced nervously at the ground, as if she expected it to open up and swallow her.**

"Would it?" Leo asked.

"If I told them do." Hades said.

Athena glared at Hades.

which I wouldn't do." Hades said quickly under Athena's glare.

**"You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all."**

**"Look, is there anything we **_**can **_**say without it thundering?"**

**I sounded whiny,**

"Yeah he did." Clarrise and Annabeth said.

**even to myself, but right then I didn't care. "Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there."**

**I pointed to the first few cabins, and Annabeth turned pale. "You don't just choose a cabin, Percy. It depends on who your parents are. Or... your parent."**

**She stared at me, waiting for me to get it.**

"That's gonna take a while" Nico chuckled.

**"My mom is Sally Jackson," I said.** **"She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station. At least, she used to."**

Sally, Paul and Poseidon frowned.

**"I'm sorry about your mom, Percy. But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dad."**

**"He's dead. I never knew him."**

"Last time I checked he's not." Hades said.

**Annabeth sighed. Clearly, she'd had this conversation before with other kids.**

"Way too many times, too" she grumbled.

**"Your father's not dead, Percy."**

**"How can you say that? You know him?"**

"Yep." Annabeth said.

**"No, of course not."**

**"Then how can you say—"**

**"Because I know **_**you.**_ **You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."**

**"You don't know anything about me."**

"Now he's gone and done it, never challenge her about knowing something.

**"No?" She raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them."**

**"How—"**

**"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too."**

**I tried to swallow my embarrassment. "What does that have to do with anything?"**

**"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right?**

"So?" Connor asked

**That's because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek.**

**And the ADHD—you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battle field reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Percy, not too little.**

"He is very observant" Athena nodded.

**Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are."**

**"You sound like ... you went through the same thing?"**

"We all did, but for Rachel the lucky kid." Clarrise said.

Rachel rubbed the back of her head.

**"Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."**

**"Ambrosia and nectar?"**

Apollo and Hermes started drooling. "I'm hungry" Apollo whined

"You just ate lunch about an hour ago" Artemis rolled her eyes.

"What's your point?" Hermes asked.

**"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead. Face it. You're a half-blood."**

**A half-blood.**

The demigods cheered.

**I was reeling with so many questions**

**I didn't know where to start.**

**Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"**

Clarrise smirked.

**I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward us.**

Ares and Clarrise frowned.

**She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.**

**"Clarisse," Annabeth sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"**

Athena and Ares glared at each other.

**"Sure, Miss Princess," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."**

Annabeth smirked, remembering what happened.

_**''Erre es korakas!"**_ **Annabeth said, which I somehow under stood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though I had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded.**

"It does." Hermes smirked.

**"You don't stand a chance."**

**"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat.**

Ares snorted. "Yeah right you're going down Athene."

"Don't call me Athene Ares." Athena said.

"I can call you what ever I want to Athene."

"Ares stop messing with Athena!" Zeus commanded.

"Yes Father."

**She turned toward me. "Who's this little runt?"**

**"Percy Jackson," Annabeth said, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."**

**I blinked. "Like ... the war god?"**

"No, like the peace god" Ares said sarcastically.

**Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"**

**"No," I said, recovering my wits. "It explains the bad smell."**

Everyone in the room burst out laughing. Except for Ares, Chris and Clarrise.

**Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Prissy."**

"Oh so that's where Prissy comes from." Leo, Piper and Jason said.

**"Percy."**

**"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you."**

**"Clarisse—" Annabeth tried to say.**

**"Stay out of it, wise girl."**

"THAT"S HOW IT STARTED?!" The demigods minis, Annabeth and Clarisse asked.

"Yep." Clarisse and Annabeth said popping the p.

**Annabeth looked pained,**

Athena glared at Ares.

**but she did stay out of it, and I didn't really want her help.**

**I was the new kid. I had to earn my own rep.**

The demigods nodded.

**I handed Annabeth my minotaur horn and got ready to fight, but before I knew it, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew immediately was the bathroom.**

Ares smirked, but Clarrise didn't.

**I was kicking and punching. I'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron.**

Ares beamed at her daughter.

**She dragged me into the girls' bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking—as much as I**_**could**_**think with Clarisse ripping my hair out—that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier johns.**

Everyone started laughing.

**Clarisse's friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the strength I'd used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn't there.**

**"Like he's 'Big Three' material," Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets.**

Poseidon smirked. Ares frowned.

**"Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, he was so stupid looking."**

Ares smirked. Poseidon frowned.

**Her friends snickered. Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers.**

**Clarisse bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl.**

Everyone looked grossed out.

**It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets.**

The girls wrinkled their noses.

**I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won't.**

**Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach.**

Poseidon smirked at Ares.

**I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse's grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me.**

Everyone started laughing, except Clarrise, Chris and Ares.

**I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt.**

Hermes and Apollo were rolling on the floor from laughing so hard.

**The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall.**

"I-I ca-can't BREATHE!" Nico laughed.

"M-me eith-either." Thalia laughed.

**She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her.**

Everyone started to calm down, clutching their stomachs.

**But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back.**

Another fit of laughter roared up from everyone but the two war people and Chris.

**The showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away.**

Conner read, his voice shaking from laughter.

**As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started.**

**The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth hadn't been spared.**

Annabeth frowned at the memory.

**She was dripping wet, but she hadn't been pushed out the door. She was standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock.**

**I looked down and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room.**

"COOL!" Leo exclaimed.

**There was a circle of dry floor around me. I didn't have one drop of water on my clothes. Nothing.**

"He's waterproof" Jason said

**I stood up, my legs shaky.**

**Annabeth said, "How did you ..."**

**"I don't know."**

"Of course he doesn't" Thalia giggled

**We walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage.**

"Eww" Aphrodite wrinkled her nose.

**She gave me a look of absolute hatred. "You are dead, new boy. You are totally dead."**

**I probably should have let it go, but I said, "You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."**

Everyone laughed but for the same three

**Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.**

**Annabeth stared at me. I couldn't tell whether she was just grossed out or angry at me for dousing her.**

"Both" Annabeth answered.

**"What?" I demanded. "What are you thinking?"**

"She always thinking." Travis said.

"Unlike you who never thinks." Katie said.

"Ohh." Everyone said.

**"I'm thinking," She said, "That I want you on my team for capture the flag."**

Conner closed the book. A light shined brightly in the middle of the room.


	8. My Dinner Goes up in Smoke

The light died down and Percy stood there grinning. Spreading his arms wide open.

"HEY EVERYONE I'M BACK MISS ME?!" Percy asked.

"PERCY!" Annabeth yelled running up to him and hugging him.

Percy picked her up and twilled her around and held her tightly.

"Seaweed Brain."

"My wise Girl, Mom, Paul." Percy let go of Annabeth to hug, Sally and Paul. Nico, Grover and Percy fist bumped along with Clarisse, Chris, Travis and Conner, Chiron patted his back and smiled.

"It's good to see you again, Percy." Chiron said.

"You too Chiron all of you." Percy said.

Katie hugged him and so did Thalia than shocked him a little bit. Rachel high five him and they sat down. Athena went back to her to thrown right a cross from Poseidon (which he loved.)

"Percy this Jason Grace, son of Jupiter, Piper McLean, daughter of Aphrodite and Leo Valdez, son of Hephaestus." Annabeth said.

"Hey guys." Percy said.

"Hi." Piper, Leo and Jason said.

"Who wants to read next?" Travis asked.

"I will and yes I read, Thalia, Nico." Percy said as Thalia and Nico opened their mouths.

**"My Dinner Goes up in Smoke," **Percy read.

**Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately.**

**Wherever I went, campers pointed at me and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth, who was still pretty much dripping wet.**

"Turns out I was hit with shower water not toilet water." Annabeth said.

**She showed me a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords),**

Hephaestus and Leo smiled.

**the arts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man),**

"Pan" Hermes smiled.

"Pan's pretty cool." Nico smiled

"Yeah." Rachel said.

**and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough.**

"I LOVE THAT WALL!" Leo yelled.

"That's because you don't get burned flame boy." Piper said.

**Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins.**

**"I've got training to do," Annabeth said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall."**

"Ooh, cold shoulder" Nico said

Percy splashed him with water.

"No matter what I'll never forget nor miss that." Percy smirked.

Everyone laughed.

**"Annabeth, I'm sorry about the toilets."**

**"Whatever."**

**"It wasn't my fault."**

Everyone raised an eyebrow.

"Um, yes it was." Piper said

"I know that now but back than I didn't." Percy said.

**She looked at me skeptically, and I realized it was my fault.**

"WOW!" Travis exclaimed

"What?" Katie asked him.

"Percy just realized something!" Conner laughed.

Everyone laughed as they got splashed.

**I'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. I didn't understand how. But the toilets had responded to me. I had become one with the plumbing.**

**"You need to talk to the Oracle," Annabeth said.**

**"Who?"**

**"Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron."**

**I stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give me a straight answer for once.**

"Don't we all at times." The demigods said.

**I wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below. They wore blue jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend.**

"In a way, they kind of are." Artemis said

**I didn't know what else to do.**

"I never do with out Annabeth." Percy said.

Annabeth put her head on his shoulder hugging him.

**I waved back.**

**"Don't encourage them," Annabeth warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts."**

"What they are." Annabeth, Percy and Poseidon said.

**"Naiads," I repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now."**

"You freak with Naiads but not the other stuff?" Nico asked.

"Yep." Percy said.

**Annabeth frowned. "Don't you get it, Percy? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us."**

**"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"**

"Did you just call us mentally disturbed?" Chris asked .

"...Um sorry." Percy said.

**"I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."**

**"Half-human and half-what?"**

"Half Seaweed" Nico chuckled.

Everyone laughed.

**"I think you know."**

**I didn't want to admit it, but I was afraid I did. I felt a tingling in my limbs, a sensation I sometimes felt when my mom talked about my dad.**

**"God," I said. "Half-god."**

"Ding, ding, ding, DING..." Travis said.

"...we have a winner!" Conner said.

Everyone laughed.

**Annabeth nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Percy. He's one of the Olympians."**

**"That's ... crazy."**

"He is" Zeus chuckled and Poseidon glared at him.

**"Is it? What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans**

The goddesses snorted.

**and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"**

"Nope." The goddess said while looking at the gods, who had dream expressions on their face. (Poseidon was thinking about Athena.)

**"But those are just-" I almost said myths again. Then I remembered Chiron's warning that in two thousand years, I might be considered a myth.**

"You are." Rachel said.

**"But if all the kids here are half-gods,"**

**"Demigods," Annabeth said. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods."**

**"Then who's your dad?"**

**Her hands tightened around the pier railing. I got the feeling I'd just trespassed on a sensitive subject.**

"Big time." Travis said.

**"My dad is a professor at West Point," she said. "I haven't seen him since I was very small. He teaches American history."**

**"He's human."**

**"What? You assume it has to be a male god who finds a human female attractive? How sexist is that?"**

"Very." Aphrodite said

**"Who's your mom, then?"**

**"Cabin six."**

"You actually thought he knew what that meant?" Katie asked.

**"Meaning?"**

**Annabeth straightened. "Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle."**

Athena smiled fondly at her daughter who smiled back.

**Okay, I thought. Why not?**

Athena and Annabeth raised an eyebrow.

"What's that supposed to mean?" They asked.

"I was still getting us to it, I'm not judging." Percy said quickly.

**"And my dad?"**

**"Undetermined," Annabeth said, "like I told you before. Nobody knows."**

**"Except my mother. She knew."**

"She/I did" Poseidon and Sally said.

**"Maybe not, Percy. Gods don't always reveal their identities."**

**"My dad would have. He loved her."**

"I did tell her. And I do love her" Poseidon said.

Sally smiled.

"I still love you too, I just love Paul more." Sally said kissing Paul's cheek.

"I'm not judging."

**Annabeth gave me a cautious look. She didn't want to burst my bubble.**

"I didn't." Annabeth said.

**"Maybe you're right. Maybe he'll send a sign. That's the only way to know for sure: your father has to send you a sign claiming you as his son. Sometimes it happens."**

**"You mean sometimes it doesn't?"**

**Annabeth ran her palm along the rail. "The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don't always ... Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Percy. They ignore us."**

"We don't ignore you!" Athena said.

"I know you don't mom you clam us at birth and once we get to camp."

"And the others do at times." The demigods said.

**I thought about some of the kids I'd seen in the Hermes cabin, teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. I'd known kids like that at Yancy Academy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didn't have the time to deal with them. But gods should behave better.**

The gods looked down guiltily, minus Hera and Artemis, as the demigods glared at them.

**"So I'm stuck here," I said. "That's it? For the rest of my life?"**

Nico snorted "I can't remember the last time he stayed at camp for a whole summer"

"Well, what choice does he have?" Annabeth said "He's always out there, saving the world"

"Whether we like it or not" Thalia added.

"Well, we like it" Travis and Connor said "If he didn't go out on quests or sneak out of camp, we could all be monster chow or demigod kebab"

**"It depends," Annabeth said. "Some campers only stay the summer. If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you're probably not a real powerful force.**

Demeter and Aphrodite huffed "What's that supposed to mean?" they asked Annabeth

"Well, I just meant that you're children's scent are fainter than the Big Three" Annabeth said

**The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for some of us, it's too dangerous to leave. We're year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters.**

**They sense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they'll ignore us until we're old enough to cause trouble about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you'd know them. Some don't even realize they're demigods. But very, very few are like that."**

**"So monsters can't get in here?"**

**Annabeth shook her head. "Not unless they're intentionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside."**

The demigods (minus the trio) frowned _Luke_.

**"Why would anybody want to summon a monster?"**

**"Practice fights. Practical jokes."**

**"Practical jokes?"**

The Stolls, Chris and Hermes smiled.

**"The point is, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm."**

**"So ... you're a year-rounder?"**

**Annabeth nodded. From under the collar of her T-shirt she pulled a leather necklace with five clay beads of different colors. It was just like Luke's, except Annabeth's also had a big gold ring strung on it, like a college ring.**

Athena and Annabeth smiled.

**"I've been here since I was seven," she said. "Every August, on the last day of summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I've been here longer than most of the counselors, and they're all in college."**

**"Why did you come so young?"**

**She twisted the ring on her necklace. "None of your business."**

**"Oh." I stood there for a minute in uncomfortable silence.**

"Awkward." Apollo said.

**"So ... I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?"**

If you do count, monsters attacking you." Dionysus said.

**"It would be suicide, but you could, with Mr. D's or Chiron's permission. But they wouldn't give permission until the end of the summer session unless ..."**

**"Unless?"**

**"You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time..."**

**Her voice trailed off. I could tell from her tone that the last time hadn't gone well.**

"Not one bit." Annabeth said.

**"Back in the sick room," I said, "when you were feeding me that stuff-"**

"Ambrosia" Annabeth said.

**"Ambrosia."**

Annabeth smiled and snuggled closer to her Seaweed Brain.

**"Yeah. You asked me something about the summer solstice."**

**Annabeth's shoulders tensed. "So you do know some thing?"**

The demigods snorted.

**"Well... no. Back at my old school, I overheard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grover mentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn't have much time, because of the deadline. What did that mean?"**

**She clenched her fists.**

**"I wish I knew. Chiron and the satyrs, they know, but they won't tell me. Something is wrong in Olympus, something pretty major.**

"Oh yeah like Zeus not sleeping with his master bolt." Hades smirked.

Everyone but Zeus busted out laughing.

"HAHA S-sleeps haha l-l-lighting bolt haha." Travis laughed.

"I-I can't believe you do that Father." Athena laughed.

"ATHENA!" Zeus yelled.

"Y-you should talk you sleep with your books." Hermes laughed.

"I-I fall asleep r-rea-reading them."

Everyone laughed for about a good five minutes before calming down. Percy continued to read with laughter in his voice.

**Last time I was there, everything seemed so normal."**

**"You've been to Olympus?"**

"Yep." Percy said popping the p.

**"Some of us year-rounders, Luke and Clarisse and I and a few others we took a field trip during winter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council."**

**"But... how did you get there?"**

"We drove dork." Thalia said.

Poseidon and Percy snorted.

"What?"

A whale's down stairs is called a dork.

...

"Total fits him than." Nico smirked.

Percy splashed Nico as everyone laughed.

**"The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor." She looked at me like she was sure I must know this already.**

**"You are a New Yorker, right?"**

**"Oh, sure." As far as I knew, there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building, but I decided not to point that out.**

"Wise choice" Rachel said.

"For once" Demigods added.

Everyone but Percy laughed

**"Right after we visited," Annabeth continued, "the weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting. A couple of times since, I've overheard satyrs talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen.**

Zeus scowled.

**And if it isn't returned by summer solstice, there's going to be trouble. When you came, I was hoping ... I mean Athena can get along with just about anybody, except for Ares. **

Ares and Athena glared at each other.

**And of course she's got the rivalry with Poseidon.**

Now Poseidon and Athena glared.

_I hate fighting with him/ her but I hardly thing he would ever love me. _Athena and Poseidon thought.

**But, I mean, aside from that, I thought we could work together.**

The demigods snorted and chuckled. Annabeth blushed faintly.

**I thought you might know something."**

**I shook my head. I wished I could help her,**

"Always loyal and kind." Rachel smiled.

**but I felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloaded to ask any more questions.**

"Finally!" Clarrise grumbled.

**"I've got to get a quest," Annabeth muttered to her self. "I'm not too young. If they would just tell me the problem-"**

**I could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Annabeth must've heard my stomach growl.**

"What is with boys and food?" Artemis asked. The guys just shrugged.

**She told me to go on, she'd catch me later.**

"And I did."

**I left her on the pier, tracing her finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.**

Annabeth blushed "I was."

Athena does that too, she doing it right now too." Hermes said.

Athena looked she was indeed doing it. She blushed and told Percy to continue.

_So beautiful. _Poseidon thought.

**Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles.**

Hermes smiled.

**They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers.**

"Yes they would." Hermes smiled proudly.

**Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to me as I walked over to my spot on the floor and plopped down with my minotaur horn.**

**The counselor, Luke, came over.**

The demigods winced or frowned.

**He had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact.**

"Scar?" Hermes asked.

**"Found you a sleeping bag," he said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store."**

**I couldn't tell if he was kidding about the stealing part.**

"He wasn't" Travis said, scowling.

**I said, "Thanks."**

**"No prob." Luke sat next to me, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?"**

"Everyone's first day at camp is tough" Katie said as the demigods nodded sadly.

**"I don't belong here," I said. "I don't even believe in gods."**

"Well you should!" Zeus said.

"I do now, and you're talking to a book."

Zeus glared at him.

"God to know your talent for pissing off the gods still works." Chris said.

"Oh yeah, but I will never and I mean **NEVER **piss off Athena.

**"Yeah," he said. "That's how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn't get any easier."**

The demigods frowned.

**The bitterness in his voice surprised me, because Luke seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything.**

**"So your dad is Hermes?" I asked.**

Hermes smiled.

**He pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and for a second I thought he was going to gut me,**

"Not yet!" Connor hissed lowly so that only the demigods can hear.

**but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. "Yeah. Hermes."**

**"The wing-footed messenger guy."**

"better than, cherubs." Hermes smirked.

"So he knows that?"

"Yep." Thalia said.

"Good."

**"That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who he sponsors."**

**I figured Luke didn't mean to call me a nobody.**

"Maybe he did." Travis hissed so only the demigods heard.

**He just had a lot on his mind.**

"Yeah Kronos." Nico whispered.

The room got a little cooler.

**"You ever meet your dad?" I asked.**

**"Once."**

Annabeth and Thalia winced, not liking the memory at all.

**I waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell me, he'd tell me. Apparently, he didn't. I wondered if the story had any thing to do with how he got his scar.**

"It didn't." Annabeth and Thalia whispered.

**Luke looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Percy. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other."**

The demigods frowned.

**He seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that, because an older guy like him even if he was a counselor should've steered clear of an uncool middle-schooler like me. But Luke had welcomed me into the cabin. He'd even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day.**

**I decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. "Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being 'Big Three' material. Then Annabeth ... twice, she said I might be 'the one.' She said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?"**

**Luke folded his knife. "I hate prophecies."**

"So do we." The demigods said

"Again right here." Rachel said.

**"What do you mean?"**

**His face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else.**

"Yes, you did!" Connor snarled.

**The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour,** **Chiron hasn't allowed any more quests. Annabeth's been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn't tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until...somebody special came to the camp."**

**"Somebody special?"**

**"Don't worry about it, kid," Luke said. "Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she's been waiting for.**

"Yes, and she's been waiting for a very long time" Nico added, snickering.

**Now, come on, it's dinnertime."**

**The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I'd never heard one before.**

**Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!"**

**The whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course I was dead last. Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down.**

Artemis and Thalia smiled.

**We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods****and when I say out of the woods, I mean straight out of the woods. I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill.**

**In all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads.**

**At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded.**

Hermes frowned.

**I had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half my butt hanging off.**

Some of them snickered.

**I saw Grover sitting at table twelve with Mr. D, a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr. D.**

Dionysus smiled a little fondly.

**Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur.**

**Annabeth sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey-blond hair.**

"I love it how all of your children look like you Thena." Aphrodite said.

"Yeah, but Annabeth looks so much like her." Artemis said.

Athena and Annabeth smiled while blushing a little bit.

"Thank-you." They said.

**Clarisse sat behind me at Ares's table. She'd apparently gotten over being hosed down,**

"I hadn't." Clarrise grumbled as Ares frowned.

**because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends.**

Ares smirked but Aphrodite looked grossed out.

**Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!"**

**Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!"**

"YEAH! TO US!" Hermes and Apollo cheered.

"Be quit." Artemis snapped.

**Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! My glass was empty, but Luke said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want nonalcoholic, of course."**

Dionysus pouted as Zeus rolled his eyes to him.

**I said, "Cherry Coke."**

**The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid.**

**Then I had an idea. "Blue Cherry Coke."**

**The soda turned a violent shade of cobalt.**

**I took a cautious sip. Perfect.**

**I drank a toast to my mother.**

Sally hugged Percy and kissed his cheek.

**She's not gone, I told myself. Not permanently, anyway. She's in the Underworld. And if that's a real place, then someday...**

Hades smirked. "No matter what I'm going to in joy seeing how that works out for you."

"Oh you'll love it." Percy, Annabeth and Grover said.

"Oh boy." Poseidon and Athena groaned.

**"Here you go, Percy," Luke said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket.**

**I loaded my plate and was about to take a big bite when I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion.** **I wondered if they were going for dessert or something.**

**"Come on," Luke told me.**

**As I got closer, I saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest straw berry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll.**

"I'm HUNGRY!" Apollo whined.

"We don't care Apollo!" Artemis yelled at his twin.

**Luke murmured in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell."**

The gods smiled

**"You're kidding."**

**His look warned me not to take this lightly, but I couldn't help wondering why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food.**

"We love the smell of it, Athena can you make snickerdoodle cookies, for dessert ?" Hermes asked.

"I was thinking about it after this chapter for a break." Athena smiled.

...

"READ!" The gods yelled happily.

**Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes."**

Hermes smiled.

**I was next. I wished I knew what god's name to say.**

"How about, Poseidon?" Poseidon suggested.

"I do everyday Dad." Percy said.

**Finally, I made a silent plea. Whoever you are, tell me. Please.**

"I will son, I promise." Poseidon whispered, though the everyone heard him, and some smiled (Athena, Artemis, Sally, Paul, Demeter, Hestia, Hera, Chiron and all the demigods.)

**I scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames.**

**When I caught a whiff of the smoke, I didn't gag.**

"Well duh." Apollo said.

**It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers,**

"Ok, ok , enough with the food, you're making me more hungry." Hermes and Apollo moaned.

**and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone well together, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.**

"More like Athena's cooking." Hephaestus said.

"Shut it nobody asked you." Ares snapped.

Hephaestus' arm burst into flames more intense than Ares' fire. Hephaestus smirked.

"Why don't you shut it Ares."

Aphrodite looked at her husband a little bit.

**When everybody had returned to their seats and finished eating their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention.**

**Mr. D got up with a huge sigh.**

**"Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all you brats.**

The gods glared at Dionysus, who flinched.

**Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels."**

Ares and Clarrise smirked smugly.

**A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table.**

"Who's he calling ugly?" Ares snarled, but was hit with a huge wave. Ares glared at Poseidon, who smirked.

**"Personally," Mr. D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Peter Johnson."**

**Chiron murmured something.**

**"Er, Percy Jackson," Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on."**

**Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a sing-along.**

Apollo smiled.

**We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn't feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I felt that I was home.**

"He was home." Annabeth smiled.

"Oh yeah home sweet home." Percy sighed pulling Annabeth closer to her.

**Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conch horn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I collapsed on my borrowed sleeping bag.**

**My fingers curled around the Minotaur's horn.**

Everyone smiled.

"A prize well earned." Hera said.

**I thought about my mom, but I had good thoughts: her smile, the bedtime stories she would read me when I was a kid, the way she would tell me not to let the bedbugs bite.**

Everyone smiled sadly.

**When I closed my eyes, I fell asleep instantly.**

"I know the feeling" the demigods said.

**That was my first day at Camp Half-Blood.**

**I wish I'd known how briefly I would get to enjoy my new home.**

"Oh boy." Poseidon, Sally and Paul said.


	9. Break one

**Sorry took to long to post this we're moving so most a lot of time to write.**

* * *

**Break One.**

Athena got up and left for the kitchen while everyone sat down and waited.

"So um what do you all want to do?" Percy asked.

"How about once Athena comes back we go on one of Poseidon's ships so we can sail and party a bit?" Hermes asked.

"No way you know how Athena feels about boats." Artemis said.

"Oh yeah I forgot."

"Oh about we go to the beach in Hawaii?" Apollo asked.

Everyone looked at him.

"What every once in a while I'd like to go to the beach."

"No that's a great idea." Zeus said.

"Who knows maybe I'll get Athena in a bikini." Aphrodite said.

Poseidon blushed at the thought of Athena in a bikini and so did most of the other single boys.

"Dude she'd look hot." Conner said.

"Yeah, bet Poseidon would love that." Travis said pointing at the really red sea god.

"Mmm he's really going to like the idea." Hermes whistled.

"Why don't we get ready while we wait for Athena, to come back." Hestia asked.

Aphrodite snapped her fingers and everyone, but Chiron appeared in beach clothing.

"Oh I could just do that." Aphrodite said.

"Or that." Hestia said.

Ten minutes passed and Athena come in wearing an extra large shirt and flip flops carrying a plat of cookies. She glared at Aphrodite as she come by passing the cookies out to everyone. Aphrodite winked and giggled.

"So I take it we're going to the beach?" Athena asked.

"Yeah Apollo's idea." Hermes said.

"That explains the bikini."

"Why are you covering?" Aphrodite asked.

"Because I hate bikinis for one and for two I don't like showing to much skin."

Athena walked to Zeus and offered him a cookie.

Zeus took one and than thanked her. As she was about to walk over to, Poseidon Zeus Tripped her and she ended up landing on top of Poseidon's lap. Poseidon blushed deeply and Athena got off.

_Oh gods that didn't just happen?!_ Athena and Poseidon thought.

Athena coughed and looked at Zeus who shrugged. Everyone else was snickering. Once Athena finished passing out the cookies and everyone appeared at Hawaii beach.

"Hey dad bet I can serf better than you!" Percy said.

Poseidon made two serf boards appear and they ran off. Aphrodite put sun block on and started to work on her tan. Everyone else was playing a game of Vally ball. Area hit the ball a little too hard, sending it over to the water edge.

"I'll get." Athena said.

Percy made the ball go under water and when Poseidon went to the beach to sit a bit he bumped into Athena when Percy made the ball hit him. Athena and Poseidon fell into the water and everyone snicnkered for they landed on each other noises touching.

Both of their faces were red when Athena moved so she was off of Poseidon.

"Sorry about that." Athena said.

"I-It's ok." Poseidon said.

They helped each other up and Athena grabbed the ball and went back over than removed her shirt which was now soking wet. All the single boys, and Poseidon's mouth droped open and blushed.

"Wow." Conner said.

"Mouth closed boys." Athena said.

Everyone's whose mouth was open closed them and conuntined as if nothing had happen.


	10. Notice

**Ok sorry not up dating so much we moved and I find a hard time to work on most of my stories but I'm working on them thank-you.**


	11. We Capture a Flag

**Sorry took so long to update, I moved so tough time doing this from an iPhone.**

After the break the all appeared back at Olympus and cleaned up so the didn't smell like salt. The got back to the thrown room and settled down.

"Who wants to read now?" Zeus asked.

"I will Father." Hephaestus said.

Zeus passed him the book and he opened it to the right chapter.

"**We Capture a Flag," **Hephaestus read.

Percy smirked at Clarisse while she glared at him.

**The next few days I settled into a routine that felt almost normal, if you don't count the fact that I was getting lessons from satyrs, nymphs, and a centaur.**

**Each morning I took Ancient Greek from Annabeth,**

"I like that." Percy said.

"Really I thought you like it when you two are the beach together." Thalia said.

"No I love that."

**and we talked about the gods and goddesses in the present tense, which was kind of weird. I discovered Annabeth was right about my dyslexia: Ancient Greek wasn't that hard for me to read. At least, no harder than English.**

**After a couple of mornings, I could stumble through a few lines of Homer without too much headache.**

**The rest of the day, I'd rotate through outdoor activities, looking for something I was good at. Chiron tried to teach me archery,**

"I stink at archery."

**but we found out pretty quick I wasn't any good with a bow and arrow. He didn't complain, even when he had to desnag a stray arrow out of his tail.**

"He's better than you Uncle!" Apollo laughed.

"Artemis if you please." Poseidon said.

Artemis smacked Apollo up side the heand while everyone laughed.

**Foot racing? No good either. The wood-nymph instructors left me in the dust. They told me not to worry about it. They'd had centuries of practice running away from lovesick gods.**

The goddess glared at the gods who had dream like expressions _(Poseidon still thinking of Athena on a bikini.)_

**But still, it was a little humiliating to be slower than a tree.**

"It's embarrassing." The boy demi-gods said.

**And wrestling? Forget it. Every time I got on the mat, Clarisse would pulverize me.**

Clarisse smirked.

**"There's more where that came from, punk," she'd mumble in my ear.**

**The only thing I really excelled at was canoeing, and that wasn't the kind of heroic skill people expected to see from the kid who had beaten the Minotaur.**

"To true he's good at all things water, and he's the best swords men ever." Travis said.

The demigods, Chrion all nodded.

**trying to decide who my dad was, but they weren't having an easy time of it. I wasn't as strong as the Ares kids,**

Ares smirked.

**or as good at archery as the Apollo kids.**

Everyone snorted.

"Not even close." Percy said.

**I didn't have Hephaestus's skill with metalwork**

Leo and Hephaestus smiled.

"Sorry dude not everyone can be cool like us." Leo said.

**or—gods forbid— Dionysus's way with vine plants.**

"Thank gods you don't." Dionysus said.

**Luke told me I might be a child of Hermes, a kind of jack-of-all-trades, master of none.**

"Hey!" Hermes and his sons said.

**But I got the feeling he was just trying to make me feel better. He really didn't know what to make of me either.**

_I bet. _Percy thought.

**Despite all that, I liked camp.**

"Us too!" The Demi gods cheered.

**I got used to the morning fog over the beach, the smell of hot strawberry fields in the afternoon, even the weird noises of monsters in the woods at night.**

"I hate that!" Leo and Piper yelled.

**I would eat dinner with cabin eleven,**

Conner, Travis and Chris high-five.

**scrape part of my meal into the fire, and try to feel some connection to my real dad.**

Poseidon smiled

**Nothing came.**

**Just that warm feeling I'd always had, like the memory of his smile.**

He smiled again.

**I tried not to think too much about my mom,**

Sally kissed Percy which made him smile and hug his mom. Hera smiled loving how Percy loves his mother, than frowned.

_Love you mom. _Hephaestus thought into her head.

Hera smiled. She looked at Hephaestus and mouth 'I love you too.'

Aphrodite saw this and looked at Hephaestus and Hera.

**but I kept wondering: if gods and monsters were real, if all this magical stuff was possible, surely there was some way to save her, to bring her back...**

"You could just look at the king of the dead himself." Apollo said.

**I started to understand Luke's bitterness and how he seemed to resent his father, Hermes.**

Hermes flinched and Artemis patted his back.

"Sorry Hermes." Artemis said.

**So okay, maybe gods had important things to do. But couldn't they call once in a while, or thunder, or something? Dionysus could make Diet Coke appear out of thin air. Why couldn't my dad, whoever he was, make a phone appear?**

"Stupid law." Poseidon growled.

"I have to agree." Athena said.

Everyone gasped.

"What? I love my children so I would hate that law."

**Thursday afternoon, three days after I'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood, I had my first sword-fighting lesson. Everybody from cabin eleven gathered in the big circular arena, where Luke would be our instructor.**

**We started with basic stabbing and slashing, using some straw-stuffed dummies in Greek armor. I guess I did okay.**

"His ego gets in even bigger." Nico and Thalia teased.

Everyone but Zeus and Hades laughed as they were splashed with water.

**At least, I understood what I was supposed to do and my reflexes were good.**

"They are better than good now, Percy." Rachel said.

"Thanks RED."

"RED?" Demeter asked.

"My full name is Rachel Elizabeth Dare so they call me Red some times."

**The problem was, I couldn't find a blade that felt right in my hands. Either they were too heavy, or too light, or too long.**

"I hate that about swords I have to use mine and no other." Jason said.

"Same here." Percy, Nico and Thalia said.

**Luke tried his best to fix me up, but he agreed that none of the practice blades seemed to work for me.**

**We moved on to dueling in pairs. Luke announced he would be my partner, since this was my first time.**

**"Good luck," one of the campers told me. "Luke's the best swordsman in the last three hundred years."**

"Yep and now you are." Katie whispered so only the Demi gods, Chiron, Paul and Sally could hear.

**"Maybe he'll go easy on me," I said.**

Again the demigods (minus the trio) snorted.

**The camper snorted.**

**Luke showed me thrusts and parries and shield blocks the hard way. With every swipe, I got a little more battered and bruised. "Keep your guard up, Percy," he'd say, then whap me in the ribs with the flat of his blade. "No, not that far up!"**_**Whap!**_**"Lunge!"**_**Whap!**_**"Now, back!"**_**Whap!**_

Hermes grinned.

**By the time he called a break, I was soaked in sweat.**

'_"I love you like that." _Annabeth whispered to Percy.

**Everybody swarmed the drinks cooler. Luke poured ice water on his head, which looked like such a good idea, I did the same.**

Poseidon smirked.

**Instantly, I felt better. Strength surged back into my arms. The sword didn't feel so awkward.**

"Your son is about to your his butt kicked." Ares smirked.

"At least my son didn't get hit with toilet water!" Hermes yelled.

Ares was about to get up and fight Hermes but Dionysus wrapped vines around him.

"Leave him alone Hard head." Athena said.

"Shut it Owl-face!" Ares snapped.

Poseidon splashed him with water.

"Don't talk to her like that and only I can call her Owl-face." Poseidon said.

**"Okay, everybody circle up!" Luke ordered. "If Percy doesn't mind, I want to give you a little demo."**

**Great, I thought. Let's all watch Percy get pounded.**

"Love that show!" Nico, Thalia and Clarisse said.

"I don't!" Annabeth, Katie, Rachel, Poseidon, Sally and Paul said.

"We're only joking." Nico and Thalia said.

_Speak for your selves._ Clarssie thought.

**The Hermes guys gathered around. They were suppressing smiles. I figured they'd been in my shoes before and couldn't wait to see how Luke used me for a punching bag.**

"Sorry it was true at the time." Travis and Conner said.

**He told everybody he was going to demonstrate a disarming technique: how to twist the enemy's blade with the flat of your own sword so that he had no choice but to drop his weapon.**

**"This is difficult," he stressed. "I've had it used against me. No laughing at Percy, now.**

"That's just asking for them to laugh at him." Piper said.

**Most swordsmen have to work years to master this technique."**

"Funny it took my like two or four minutes to master it." Percy smirked.

"Yeah right Punk." Ares laughed.

**He demonstrated the move on me in slow motion. Sure enough, the sword clattered out of my hand.**

**"Now in real time," he said, after I'd retrieved my weapon. "We keep sparring until one of us pulls it off. Ready, Percy?"**

**I nodded, and Luke came after me. Somehow, I kept him from getting a shot at the hilt of my sword.**

**My senses opened up. I saw his attacks coming. I countered. I stepped forward and tried a thrust of my own. Luke deflected it easily, but I saw a change in his face.**

The demigods and Chiron frowned.

**His eyes narrowed, and he started to press me with more force.**

Now everyone frowned.

**The sword grew heavy in my hand. The balance wasn't right.**

Poseidon and Annabeth flinched.

**I knew it was only a matter of seconds before Luke took me down, so I figured, What the heck?**

**I tried the disarming maneuver.**

**My blade hit the base of Luke's and I twisted, putting my whole weight into a downward thrust.**

_**Clang!**_

**Luke's sword rattled against the stones.**

"Mmm what do you know four minutes and he's mastered the move." Athena smirked.

"Nice work... for a boy." Artemis said.

"Coming from her that's the best component about any boy ever." Apollo said.

**The tip of my blade was an inch from his undefended chest.**

**The other campers were silent.**

"We'll no body ever beat Luke on their first time." Travis said.

**I lowered my sword. "Um, sorry."**

"Why apologize for that?" Jason asked.

"That's just me." Percy said.

"Poseidon does that too." Sally said.

"Yeah he says it to Athena a lot." Hestia said.

**For a moment, Luke was too stunned to speak.**

**"Sorry?" His scarred face broke into a grin. "By the gods, Percy, why are you sorry? Show me that again!"**

**I didn't want to. The short burst of manic energy had completely abandoned me. But Luke insisted.**

**This time, there was no contest. The moment our swords connected, Luke hit my hilt and sent my weapon skidding across the floor.**

**After a long pause, somebody in the audience said, "Beginner's luck?"**

"That was me." Chris said.

**Luke wiped the sweat off his brow. He appraised at me with an entirely new interest. "Maybe," he said. "But I wonder what Percy could do with a balanced sword..."**

"He's scary."

**Friday afternoon, I was sitting with Grover at the lake, resting from a near-death experience on the climbing wall.**

"That's my favorite thing ever!" Leo said.

"Mine too!" Percy said.

**Grover had scampered to the top like a mountain goat,**

"It rocks about being half mountain goat, you get up faster so you don't get burned." Grover said.

**but the lava had almost gotten me. My shirt had smoking holes in it. The hairs had been singed off my forearms. ****We sat on the pier, watching the naiads do underwater basket-weaving, until I got up the nerve to ask Grover how his conversation had gone with Mr. D.**

**His face turned a sickly shade of yellow.**

**"Fine," he said. "Just great."**

"That's a lie." Paul said.

"Yep."

**"So your career's still on track?"**

"Sorry wrong question to ask." Percy said.

"It's cool man." Grover said.

**He glanced at me nervously. "Chiron t-told you I want a searcher's license?"**

**"Well... no." I had no idea what a searcher's license was,**

**but it didn't seem like the right time to ask.** **"He just said you had big plans, you know ... and that you needed credit for completing a keeper's assignment. So did you get it?"**

**Grover looked down at the naiads. "Mr. D suspended judgment. He said I hadn't failed or succeeded with you yet, so our fates were still tied together. If you got a quest and I went along to protect you, and we both came back alive, then maybe he'd consider the job complete."**

Grover smiled.

**My spirits lifted. "Well, that's not so bad, right?"**

_**"Blaa-ha-ha!**_ **He might as well have transferred me to stable-cleaning duty. The chances of you getting a quest... and even if you did, why would you want me along****?"**

""You'r my best friend I would total want you to come along." Percy said.

**"Of course I'd want you along!"**

"You are so sweet!" Aphrodite said.

"What about me?!" Ares asked.

"What about you?"

Everyone tried to hold back their laughter, but for Hephaestus who was laughing.

**Grover stared glumly into the water. "Basket-weaving ... Must be nice to have a useful skill."**

"You do, a great friend, Grover." Athena said.

Grover blushed. Annabeth and Thalia hugged him.

"And a great searcher, Grover you made all of your friends, very prod of you." Chiron said.

"Yeah and you are very caring Grover." Hermes said.

Grover blushed as they talked about him like that.

**I tried to reassure him that he had lots of talents, but that just made him look more miserable. We talked about canoeing and swordplay for a while, then debated the pros and cons of the different gods. Finally, I asked him about the four empty cabins.**

**"Number eight, the silver one, belongs to Artemis,"**

Artemis smiled.

**he said. "She vowed to be a maiden forever.**

"Sadly." Aphrodite said.

**So of course, no kids. The cabin is, you know, honorary. If she didn't have one, she'd be mad."**

"Well that and my huntress have to stay some where when I give them a break."

**"Yeah, okay. But the other three, the ones at the end. Are those the Big Three?"**

Hades frowned.

**Grover tensed. We were getting close to a touchy subject.**

**"No. One of them, number two, is Hera's," he said.**

**"That's another honorary thing. She's the goddess of marriage, so of course she wouldn't go around having affairs with mortals.**

"No, because that's my husband's job!" Hera said glaring at Zeus.

**That's her husband's job.**

"Thank-you Grover." Hera said.

Zeus glared at Grover.

"She said it first!" Grover said hiding be hide Chiron.

**When we say the Big Three, we mean the three powerful brothers, the sons of Kronos."**

The room grew colder as Hephaestus read his name.

**"Zeus,**

"Yeah bobby!" Thalia and Jason high-five.

**Poseidon,**

Poseidon and Percy smiled at each other.

**Hades."**

Nico smiled and yelled "Hades rules!" Hades smiled and chuckled at his son.

**"Right. You know. After the great battle with the Titans, they took over the world from their dad and drew lots to decide who got what."**

**"Zeus got the sky,"**

Zeus smirked.

**I remembered. "Poseidon the sea,**

Poseidon smiled.

**Hades the Underworld."**

Hades looked like he hated it but deep down he really loved it.

**"Uh-huh."**

**"But Hades doesn't have a cabin here."**

**"No. He doesn't have a throne on Olympus, either.**

Hades huffed and glared at Zeus.

**He sort of does his own thing down in the Underworld. If he did have a cabin here ..." Grover shuddered. "Well, it wouldn't be pleasant. Let's leave it at that."**

**"But Zeus and Poseidon—they both had, like, a bazillion kids in the myths. Why are their cabins empty?"**

**Grover shifted his hooves uncomfortably.**

**"About sixty years ago, after World War II, the Big Three agreed they wouldn't sire any more heroes.**

**Their children were just too powerful.**

"you know it!" Percy, Thalia and Nico said high-five.

**They were affecting the course of human events too much, causing****too much carnage. World War II, you know, that was basically a fight between the sons of Zeus and Poseidon on one side, and the sons of Hades on the other.**

**The winning side, Zeus and Poseidon, made Hades swear an oath with them: no more affairs with mortal women. They all swore on the River Styx."**

**Thunder boomed.**

Thunder boomed in the room.

**I said, "That's the most serious oath you can make."**

"Not a word." Percy said as many opened their mouths.

**Grover nodded.**

**"And the brothers kept their word—no kids?"**

Everyone snorted.

**Grover's face darkened. "Seventeen years ago, Zeus fell off the wagon. There was this TV starlet with a big fluffy eighties hairdo**

—**he just couldn't help himself.**

Hera glared at Zeus.

**When their child was born, a little girl named Thalia... well, the River Styx is serious about promises. Zeus himself got off easy because he's immortal,**

**but he brought a terrible fate on his daughter."**

Thalia flinched and Zeus looked down saddly.

**"But that isn't fair. It wasn't the little girl's fault."**

"Little girl?" Thalia asked.

"What? You were a little girl at one point in time." Percy said.

**Grover hesitated. "Percy, children of the Big Three have powers greater than other half-bloods.**

"True but we also get the more powerful and deadly monsters, and of course Athena for she's as powerful as the big three at times." Nico said.

Everyone nodded and looked at Athena.

"It's true deary." Demeter said.

"Not to menchen you know how to keep the peace." Hestia said.

Athena blushed as red as a rose maybe even redder.

**They have a strong aura, a scent that attracts monsters. When Hades found out about the girl, he wasn't too happy about Zeus breaking his oath. Hades let the worst monsters out of Tartarus to torment Thalia.**

Hermes, Thalia, Zeus, Annabeth, Grover and Athena glared at Hades. Hades flinched and looked down at his niece and her friend.

"I'm sorry Thalia, Annabth you too."

Thalia and Annabeth smiled and nodded at him.

**A satyr was assigned to be her keeper when she was twelve, but there was nothing he could do.**

"Thanks Grover." Thalia said.

"No problem Thalia, I'm glade I could grate your wish." Grover whimpered.

"Grover it wasn't your fault I wanted it, you kept my promos and kept my little Anna safe."

Annabeth hugged Thalia and than Grover.

"I'm grateful for that by the way Grover." Athena said.

**He tried to escort her here with a couple of other half-bloods she'd befriended. They almost made it. They got all the way to the top of that hill."**

Annabeth and Thalia flinched at the memory.

**He pointed across the valley, to the pine tree where I'd fought the minotaur. "All three Kindly Ones were after them, along with a horde of hellhounds.**

Zeus, Hermes, Athena all glared at Hades.

"Alright I'm sorry already stop now!" Hades yelled.

**They were about to be overrun when Thalia told her satyr to take the other two half-bloods to safety while she held off the monsters.**

"Brave move, young hero." Hestia said.

"Thank-you, Lady Hestia." Thalia said.

**She was wounded and tired, and she didn't want to live like a hunted animal.**

**The satyr didn't want to leave her, but he couldn't change her mind, and he had to protect the others. So Thalia made her final stand alone, at the top of that hill.**

Thalia flinched and Jason hugged his sister.

**As she died,** **Zeus took pity on her. He turned her into that pine tree. Her spirit still helps protect the borders of the valley. That's why the hill is called Half-Blood Hill."**

"A great honor, at a terrible price." Chiron sighed putting his hand on Thaila's shoulder.

**I stared at the pine in the distance.**

**The story made me feel hollow, and guilty too. A girl my age had sacrificed herself to save her friends. She had faced a whole army of monsters. Next to that, my victory over the Minotaur didn't seem like much.**

"Nope you top mine, you lost your mother and fought him with out training."

**I wondered, if I'd acted differently, could I have saved my mother?**

"That's your flaw, your loyalty will get you killed one day." Athena said.

"Much like Poseidon minis the killing part." Hera said.

**"Grover," I said, "Have heroes really gone on quests to the Underworld?"**

"Hades..."

"I have no power over your son's actions."

**"Sometimes," he said. "Orpheus. Hercules. Houdini."**

**"And have they ever returned somebody from the dead?"**

"No" Hades answered.

**"No. Never. Orpheus came close... . Percy, you're not seriously thinking—"**

**"No," I lied.**

"For once I wished you told the truth no demigod should go to the Underworld." Hermes said shaking.

**"I was just wondering. So ... a satyr is always assigned to guard a demigod?"**

"Now Percy can change the subject, Chiron you can learn a thing or two from him." Hermes said.

Chiron blushed slightly and rubbed the back of his head.

"Yeah and Grover can learn how to lie from Chiron." Percy said.

Grover blushed.

**Grover studied me warily. I hadn't persuaded him that I'd really dropped the Underworld idea. "Not always. We go undercover to a lot of schools. We try to sniff out the half-bloods who have the makings of great heroes.**

"He found 5." Annabeth said.

"Thalia, Annabeth, Percy, Bianca and myself." Nico said.

"They are in deed the most powerful demigods at camp that Grover found." Chiron said.

**If we find one with a very strong aura, like a child of the Big Three, we alert Chiron. He tries to keep an eye on them, since they could cause really huge problems."**

**"And you found me. Chiron said you thought I might be something special."**

**Grover looked as if I'd just led him into a trap. "I didn't... Oh, listen, don't think like that. If you**_**were**_—**you know—you'd never**_**ever**_**be allowed a quest,**

**and I'd never get my license. You're probably a child of Hermes.**

"Well I see why he would think that, Percy does look like one of my children." Hermes said.

**Or maybe even one of the minor gods, like Nemesis, the god of revenge. Don't worry, okay?"**

"Wait I thought Nemesis was a goddess?" Apollo said confused.

"She is." Athena said.

"Opps, my bad." Grover said rubbing his neck.

**I got the idea he was reassuring himself more than me.**

**That night after dinner, there was a lot more excitement than usual.**

**At last, it was time for capture the flag.**

The demigods cheered for their favorite game.

**When the plates were cleared away, the conch horn sounded and we all stood at our tables.**

**Campers yelled and cheered as Annabeth and two of her siblings ran into the pavilion carrying a silk banner.**

Annabeth smiled.

**It was about ten feet long, glistening gray, with a painting of a barn owl above an olive tree.**

**From the opposite side of the pavilion, Clarisse and her buddies ran in with another banner, of identical size, but gaudy red, painted with a bloody spear and a boar's head.**

Clarrise and Ares smirked.

**I turned to Luke and yelled over the noise, "Those are the flags?"**

**"Yeah."**

**"Ares and Athena always lead the teams?"**

"Often." Annabeth and Clarssie said.

**"Not always," he said. "But often."**

**"So, if another cabin captures one, what do you do— repaint the flag?"**

**He grinned. "You'll see. First we have to get one."**

**"Whose side are we on?"**

**He gave me a sly look, as if he knew something I didn't. The scar on his face made him look almost evil in the torchlight.**

**"We've made a temporary alliance with Athena. Tonight, we get the flag from Ares. And **_**you **_**are going to help."**

**The teams were announced. Athena had made an alliance with Apollo and Hermes, the two biggest cabins.**

Apollo Hermes and his sons cheered

**Apparently, privileges had been traded—shower times, chore schedules, the best slots for activities—in order to win support.**

**Ares had allied themselves with everybody else: Dionysus, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus.**

Hephaestus and Ares shared glare as they yelled out 'I'm with him/he's with me!'

**From what I'd seen, Dionysus's kids were actually good athletes, but there were only two of them.**

**Demeter's kids had the edge with nature skills and outdoor stuff but they weren't very aggressive.**

"So not true Katie is totally tough." Travis said.

**Aphrodite's sons and daughters I wasn't too worried about. They mostly sat out every activity and checked their reflections in the lake and did their hair and gossiped.**

Aphrodite smiled.

"Not Piper." Leo said.

"I'm not like most Aphrodite daughters."

**Hephaestus's kids weren't pretty, and there were only four of them,**

"I take that back they're awesome." Percy said.

**but they were big and burly from working in the metal shop all day. They might be a problem.**

Hephaestus smiled.

**That, of course, left Ares's cabin: a dozen of the biggest, ugliest, meanest kids on Long Island, or anywhere else on the planet.**

Ares smiled.

**Chiron hammered his hoof on the marble.**

**"Heroes!" he announced. "You know the rules. The creek is the boundary line. The entire forest is fair game. All magic items are allowed. The banner must be prominently displayed, and have no more than two guards. Prisoners may be disarmed, but may not be bound or gagged. No killing or maiming is allowed.**

"What? Why not?!" Ares yelled.

"Because we don't want to be killed hardhead." Athena said.

Everyone, but Hera agreed and glaring at Ares.

**I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. Arm yourselves!"**

**He spread his hands, and the tables were suddenly covered with equipment: helmets, bronze swords, spears, oxhide shields coated in metal.**

**"Whoa," I said. "We're really supposed to use these?"**

"No, really I didn't know that." Nico said sarcastically.

**Luke looked at me as if I were crazy.**

**"Unless you want to get skewered by your friends in cabin five. Here—Chiron thought these would fit. You'll be on border patrol."**

**My shield was the size of an NBA backboard,**

"Woah, that's huge" Leo said.

"It was the only one I could find." Chiron said.

**with a big caduceus in the middle.**

Hermes smiled.

**It weighed about a million pounds. I could have snowboarded on it fine,**

**but I hoped nobody seriously expected me to run fast. My helmet, like all the helmets on Athena's side, had a blue horsehair plume on top. Ares and their allies had red plumes.**

**Annabeth yelled, "Blue team, forward!"**

Annabeth and Athena smiled.

**We cheered and shook our swords and followed her down the path to the south woods. The red team yelled taunts at us as they headed off toward the north.**

Ares smiled

**I managed to catch up with Annabeth without tripping over my equipment. "Hey."**

**She kept marching.**

"Cold shoulder." Travis said.

"Sorry about that." Annabeth said.

"No problem Wise-girl." Percy said.

**"So what's the plan?" I asked. "Got any magic items you can loan me?"**

**Her hand drifted toward her pocket, as if she were afraid I'd stolen something.**

"I thought he was Hermes son, he looked like them, for the most part."

**"Just watch Clarisse's spear," she said. "You don't want that thing touching you.**

**Otherwise, don't worry. We'll take the banner from Ares. Has Luke given you your job?"**

**"Border patrol, whatever that means."**

**"It's easy. Stand by the creek, keep the reds away. Leave the rest to me. Athena always has a plan."**

Athena and Annabeth shared yet another smile.

"Athena always says that but with I." Hera said.

**She pushed ahead, leaving me in the dust.**

**"Okay," I mumbled. "Glad you wanted me on your team."**

**It was a warm, sticky night. The woods were dark, with fireflies popping in and out of view**_**.**_**Annabeth stationed me next to a little creek that gurgled over some rocks, then she and the rest of the team scattered into the trees.**

**Standing there alone, with my big blue-feathered helmet and my huge shield, I felt like an idiot.**

"Still do when ever I wear that armor." Percy said.

**The bronze sword, like all the swords I'd tried so far, seemed balanced wrong. The leather grip pulled on my hand like a bowling ball.**

**There was no way anybody would actually attack me, would they? I mean, Olympus had to have liability issues, right?**

**Far away, the conch horn blew. I heard whoops and yells in the woods, the clanking of metal, kids fighting. A blue-plumed ally from Apollo raced past me like a deer, leaped through the creek, and disappeared into enemy territory.**

**Great, I thought. I'll miss all the fun, as usual.**

The demigods snorted along with Chiron.

**Then I heard a sound that sent a chill up my spine, a low canine growl, somewhere close by.**

**I raised my shield instinctively; I had the feeling some thing was stalking me.**

**Then the growling stopped. I felt the presence retreating.**

**On the other side of the creek, the underbrush exploded. Five Ares warriors came yelling and screaming out of the dark.**

**"Cream the punk!" Clarisse screamed.**

**Her ugly pig eyes glared through the slits of her helmet. She brandished a five-foot-long spear, its barbed metal tip flickering with red light. Her siblings had only the standard-issue bronze swords—not that that made me feel any better.**

**They charged across the stream. There was no help in sight. I could run. Or I could defend myself against half the Ares cabin.**

**I managed to sidestep the first kid's swing, but these guys were not as stupid as the Minotaur.**

**They surrounded me, and Clarisse thrust at me with her spear. My shield deflected the point, but I felt a painful tingling all over my body. My hair stood on end. My shield arm went numb, and the air burned.**

**Electricity. Her stupid spear was electric.**

"My spear was not stupid!" Clarisse growled.

**I fell back.**

**Another Ares guy slammed me in the chest with the butt of his sword and I hit the dirt.**

**They could've kicked me into jelly, but they were too busy laughing.**

**"Give him a haircut," Clarisse said. "Grab his hair."**

"It's like Poseidon's." Sally and Athena said.

**I managed to get to my feet. I raised my sword, but Clarisse slammed it aside with her spear as sparks flew. Now both my arms felt numb.**

**"Oh, wow," Clarisse said. "I'm scared of this guy. Really scared."**

"Oh you will be." Percy said looking down scaring everyone that someone who knew someone so good, could be so scary.

**"The flag is that way," I told her.**

"Never give away anything to an enemy." Athena and Ares said before glaring at each other for saying the same thing.

**I wanted to sound angry, but I was afraid it didn't come out that way.**

"Nope." Clarisse said.

**"Yeah," one of her siblings said. "But see, we don't care about the flag. We care about a guy who made our cabin look stupid."**

"Say anything and I will kill you." Clarisse said glaring at Travis and Conner.

**"You do that without my help," I told them.**

Everyone laughed but for Ares, Clarisse and Chris.

**It probably wasn't the smartest thing to say.**

**Two of them came at me. I backed up toward the creek,**

Poseidon grinned.

**tried to raise my shield, but Clarisse was too fast. Her spear stuck me straight in the ribs. If I hadn't been wearing an armored breastplate, I would've been shish-kebab.**

"I would rather not be a shish-kebab." Percy said.

**As it was, the electric point just about shocked my teeth out of my mouth.**

**One of her cabinmates slashed his sword across my arm, leaving a good-size cut.**

**Seeing my own blood made me dizzy—warm and cold at the same time.**

Aphrodite, Piper and Rachel looked like they might be sick.

**"No maiming," I managed to say.**

**"Oops," the guy said. "Guess I lost my dessert privilege."**

"THAT'S THE PUNISHMENT!?" The gods but Hera, and Dionysus yelled.

"Dionysos made that rule not mine." Chiron said.

Everyone but Hera glared at Dionysus.

**He pushed me into the creek and I landed with a splash.**

"You're in trouble now." Percy smirked.

"Shut up." Clarisse said.

**They all laughed. I figured as soon as they were through being amused, I would die.**

"Most likely" Apollo said.

**But then something happened. The water seemed to wake up my senses, as if I'd just had a bag of my mom's double-espresso jelly beans.**

**Clarisse and her cabinmates came into the creek to get me, but I stood to meet them. I knew what to do. Iswung the flat of my sword against the first guy's head and knocked his helmet clean off. I hit him so hard I could see his eyes vibrating as he crumpled into the water.**

**Ugly Number Two and Ugly Number Three came at me.**

**I slammed one in the face with my shield and used my sword to shear off the other guy's horsehair plume.**

**Both of them backed up quick. Ugly Number Four didn't look really anxious to attack, but Clarisse kept coming, the point of her spear crackling with energy. As soon as she thrust, I caught the shaft between the edge of my shield and my sword, and I snapped it like a twig.**

"Ah! That idiot! That corpse-breath worm!" Ares yelled

"Did he really snapped it like a twig?" Artemis asked.

"Yeah, as much as I hate to say it, Percy's strong." Clarisse said.

**"Ah!" she screamed. "You idiot! You corpse-breath worm!"**

Everyone laughed.

"Father like daughter."

"And Clarisee Nico is corps breathe and I'm Seaweed Brain." Percy said.

"Yeah... HEY I"M NOT CORPSE BREATHE!" Nico yelled as everyone but Hades laughed.

**she probably would've said worse, but I smacked her between the eyes with my sword-butt and sent her stumbling backward out of the creek.**

**Then I heard yelling, elated screams, and I saw Luke racing toward the boundary line with the red team's banner lifted high.**

Hermes smiled.

**He was flanked by a couple of Hermes guys covering his retreat, and a few Apollo's behind them, fighting off the Hephaestus kids.**

"Go Apollo Cabin!" Apollo cheered.

**The Ares folks got up, and Clarisse muttered a dazed curse.**

**"A trick!" she shouted. "It was a trick."**

**They staggered after Luke, but it was too late. Everybody converged on the creek as Luke ran across into friendly territory. Our side exploded into cheers.**

"ATHENA, HERMES, APOLLO RULE!" Annabeth, Percy, the Stoll brothers cherred.

**The red banner shimmered and turned to silver.**

**The boar and spear were replaced with a huge caduceus, the symbol of cabin eleven.**

**Everybody on the blue team picked up Luke and started carrying him around on their shoulders. Chiron cantered out from the woods and blew the conch horn.**

**The game was over. We'd won.**

**I was about to join the celebration when Annabeth's voice, right next to me in the creek, said, "Not bad, hero."**

Annabeth and Athena shared a smile.

**I looked, but she wasn't there.**

"The cap" Thalia and Grover said.

"I hate that cap" Travis said.

"Why?" Grover asked.

"Because for two reasons one) she never let's us use it..." Connor said.

"... 2) she always scares the Hades out of us when ever she uses it." Chris said.

Annabeth smiled and chuckled.

"Oh yeah she's your daughter all right, Athena does that to but she doesn't need a hat to do it." Apollo said.

Athena blushed and turned invisable, to get everyone to stop looking at you.

"See, come on out my dear." Zeus said.

Athena reappeared.

"Read on now, son."

**"Where the heck did you learn to fight like that?" she asked. The air shimmered, and she materialized, holding a Yankees baseball cap as if she'd just taken it off her head.**

Athena and Annabeth smiled.

**I felt myself getting angry. I wasn't even fazed by the fact that she'd just been invisible. "You set me up," I said. "You put me here because you knew Clarisse would come after me, while you sent Luke around the flank. You had it all figured out."**

"I know I'm slow."

**Annabeth shrugged. "I told you. Athena always, always has a plan."**

Athena smiled proudly at her daughter.

"A get my son pulverized." Poseidon grumbled.

**"A plan to get me pulverized."**

Percy and Poseidon shared a smile.

**"I came as fast as I could. I was about to jump in, but ..." She shrugged. "You didn't need help."**

**Then she noticed my wounded arm. "How did you do that?"**

"Sword cut." Nico and Thalia smirked.

"Smart asses." Annabth said.

**"Sword cut," I said. "What do you think?"**

**"No. It**_**was**_**a sword cut. Look at it."**

**The blood was gone. Where the huge cut had been, there was a long white scratch, and even that was fading. As I watched, it turned into a small scar, and disappeared.**

"Cool! The water can heal you?" Leo said

"Yeah I can heal others too." Percy said.

"And to scare or splash everyone." Thalia smirked.

**"I—I don't get it," I said.**

"Of course he doesn't." Thalia smirked.

**Annabeth was thinking hard.**

"When is she not?" Nico asked.

**I could almost see the gears turning. She looked down at my feet, then at Clarisse's broken spear, and said, "Step out of the water, Percy."**

**"What—"**

**"Just do it."**

**I came out of the creek and immediately felt bone tired. My arms started to go numb again. My adrenaline rush left me. I almost fell over, but Annabeth steadied me.**

"Travis and Conor wolf whistled.

"NOT LIKE THAT!" Annabeth yelled.

**"Oh, Styx," she cursed. "This is**_**not**_**good. I didn't want... I assumed it would be Zeus..."**

Zeus raised an eyebrow, befpore sending a clare at his grandaughter.

Athena cleared her throat before cglaring at him. "Father she has a fare point you're married to Hera, who is beautiful and you should be lucky to have her as a wife." Athena said.

"So you think Hera's beautiful?" Apollo and Hermes smirked wiggling their eyebrows.

"NOT LIKE THAT!"

Artemis smiacked them upside the head.

**Before I could ask what she meant, I heard that canine growl again, but much closer than before. A howl ripped through the forest.**

**The campers' cheering died instantly. Chiron shouted something in Ancient Greek, which I would realize, only later, I had understood perfectly: "**_**Stand ready**_**!**_**My bow**_**!"**

"Oh Gods." Reyna whispered.

Everyone close to her jumpoed forgetting she was there.

"What?"

"We forgot you were here, you were so quit." Leo said.

"Oh sorry."

**Annabeth drew her sword.**

**There on the rocks just above us was a black hound the size of a rhino, with lava-red eyes and fangs like daggers.**

"Shit!" Jason said.

"Jason." Zeus said.

"Sorry slipped out."

**It was looking straight at me.**

**Nobody moved except Annabeth, who yelled, "Percy, run!"**

**She tried to step in front of me,**

"Aww young love." Piper said before making a face. "Did that really just come out of my mouth?"

**but the hound was too fast. It leaped over her—an enormous shadow with teeth—and just as it hit me, as I stumbled backward and felt its razor-sharp claws ripping through my armor, there was a cascade of thwacking sounds, like forty pieces of paper being ripped one after the other.**

Poseidon, Sally and Pual winced.

**From the hounds neck sprouted a cluster of arrows. The monster fell dead at my feet.**

Everyone sighed in relief.

**By some miracle, I was still alive. I didn't want to look underneath the ruins of my shredded armor. My chest felt warm and wet, and I knew I was badly cut.**

Annabeth Percy, Poseidon, Sally and Pual winced.

**Another second, and the monster would've turned me into a hundred pounds of delicatessen meat.**

**Chiron trotted up next to us, a bow in his hand, his face grim.**

_**"Di immortales!"**_ **Annabeth said. "That's a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment. They don't... they're not supposed to..."**

"HADES!"

"HOW AM I SUPPOST TO KNOW?!"

**"Someone summoned it," Chiron said. "Someone inside the camp."**

Those who knew it was Luke growled.

**Luke came over, the banner in his hand forgotten, his moment of glory gone.**

**Clarisse yelled, "It's all Percy's fault! Percy summoned it!"**

"Before you saw anything I was made and we all say dump things when we're made so don't even." Clarisee said.

**"Be quiet, child," Chiron told her.**

"Go Chiron!" Travis cheered before getting punched by the daughter of Ares herself.

**We watched the body of the hellhound melt into shadow, soaking into the ground until it disappeared.**

**"You're wounded," Annabeth told me. "Quick, Percy, get in the water."**

**"I'm okay."**

**"No, you're not," she said. "Chiron, watch this."**

**I was too tired to argue. I stepped back into the creek, the whole camp gathering around me.**

**Instantly, I felt better.**

Poseidon smiled.

**I could feel the cuts on my chest closing up. Some of the campers gasped.**

**"Look, I—I don't know why," I said, trying to apologize. "I'm sorry..."**

"Do you apologize for everything?" Hestia asked.

"Pretty much." Everyone said but Leo and Jason said.

**But they weren't watching my wounds heal. They were staring at something above my head.**

**"Percy," Annabeth said, pointing. "Um ..."**

**By the time I looked up, the sign was already fading, but I could still make out the hologram of green light, spinning and gleaming. A three-tipped spear: a trident.**

Poseidon smiled.

**"Your father," Annabeth murmured. "This is **_**really **_**not good."**

**"It is determined," Chiron announced.**

**All around me, campers started kneeling, even the Ares cabin, though they didn't look happy about it.**

"We weren't" Clarrise grumbled.

**"My father?" I asked, completely bewildered.**

**"Poseidon," said Chiron. "Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God."**


	12. I Am Offered a Quest

Hephaestus closed the book and tossed it at Ares, who wasn't looking got hit in the head.

"WHY YOU!" Ares yelled getting up.

Hephaestus made flames surround him and shot it at him. Ares hit his thrown hard making it fall backwards while he was in it. Some how the book landed on his face.

"Oh Shut up, not my fault you didn't see it."

Ares grumbled as he got up and picked his throne with ease and picked the book back up.

**"I Am Offered a Quest,"**

"About time wimp." Ares said.

"Just wait into later on the book, I can't wait to see he's face, when he finds out you bet him." Nico whispered.

"Oh that's going to be fun." Clarisse said.

**The next morning, Chiron moved me to cabin three.**

Poseidon smiled.

**I didn't have to share with anybody. I had plenty of room for all my stuff: the Minotaur's horn, one set of spare clothes, and a toiletry bag. I got to sit at my own dinner table, pick all my own activities, call "lights out" whenever I felt like it, and not listen to anybody else.**

"It's not fun, before you say it Conner." Percy Nico, Thalia said.

**And I was absolutely miserable.**

Jason, Thalia and Nico nodded agreement.

**Just when I'd started to feel accepted, to feel I had a home in cabin eleven and I might be a normal kid**

—**or as normal as you can be when you're a half-blood—I'd been separated out as if I had some rare disease.**

Those who know how that feels frowned.

**Nobody mentioned the hellhound, but I got the feeling they were all talking about it behind my back.**

"Yep." Classie said.

**The attack had scared everybody. It sent two messages: one; that I was the son of the Sea God; and two, monsters would stop at nothing to kill me. They could even invade a camp that had always been considered safe.**

"I would hope it's safe, I don't want my children hurt." Aphrodite and Hephaestus said together.

**The other campers steered clear of me as much as possible.**

**Cabin eleven was too nervous to have sword class with me after what I'd done to the Ares folks in the woods,**

Ares and Clarisse frowned.

**so my lessons with Luke became one-on-one. He pushed me harder than ever, and wasn't afraid to bruise me up in the process.**

Those from the future's face darken just a bit.

**"You're going to need all the training you can get," he promised, as we were working with swords and flaming torches. "Now let's try that viper-beheading strike again. Fifty more repetitions."**

"Fifty?" Leo asked. "I much more rather to be in my workshop."

**Annabeth still taught me Greek in the mornings,**

Aphrodite smiled

**but she seemed distracted. Every time I said something, she scowled at me, as if I'd just poked her between the eyes.**

"Wow Mother like daughter." Demeter said.

Both Athena and Annabeth blushed.

**After lessons, she would walk away muttering to herself: "Quest ... Poseidon? ... Dirty rotten ... Got to make a plan …"**

Again, everyone chuckled.

"Oh you're so much like Athena it's not funny." Artemis laughed.

**Even Clarisse kept her distance, though her venomous looks made it clear she wanted to kill me for breaking her magic spear. I wished she would just yell or punch me or something. I'd rather get into fights every day than be ignored.**

"Well if you told me that I would have." Clarisse punched Percy's arm.

"How could I every time I got near someone beside Grover and Annabeth they ran away."

**I knew somebody at camp resented me, because one night I came into my cabin and found a mortal newspaper dropped inside the doorway, a copy of the**_**New York Daily News,**_**opened to the Metro page. The article took me almost an hour to read, because the angrier I got, the more the words floated around on the page.**

_**BOY AND MOTHER STILL MISSING AFTER**_ _**FREAK CAR ACCIDENT**_

_**BY EILEEN SMYTHE**_

"That's cold even for Luke." Chris whispered.

"Yeah." The other demi-gods agreed.

_**Sally Jackson and son Percy are still missing one week after their mysterious disappearance. The family's badly burned '78 Camaro was discovered last Saturday on a north Long Island road with the roof ripped off and the front axle broken.**_

_**The car had flipped and skidded for several hundred feet before exploding.**_

_**Mother and son had gone for a weekend vacation to Montauk, but left hastily, under mysterious circumstances. Small traces of blood were found in the car and near the scene of the wreck, but there were no other signs of the missing Jacksons. Residents in the rural area reported seeing nothing unusual around the time of the accident.**_

_**Ms. Jackson's husband, Gabe Ugliano,**_

_**claims that his stepson, Percy Jackson, is a troubled child who has been kicked out of numerous boarding schools and has expressed violent tendencies in the past.**_

"Only when someone hurts my freinds and loved ones." Percy said.

_**Police would not say whether son Percy is a suspect in his mother's disappearance,**_

_**but they have not ruled out foul play.**_

_**Below are recent pictures of Sally Jackson and Percy. Police urge anyone with information to call the following toll-free crime-stoppers hotline.**_

**The phone number was circled in black marker.**

**I wadded up the paper and threw it away, then flopped down in my bunk bed in the middle of my empty cabin.**

**"Lights out," I told myself miserably.**

**That night, I had my worst dream yet.**

"Oh no." Sally Paul and Poseidon groaned.

**I was running along the beach in a storm. This time, there was a city behind me. Not New York. The sprawl was different: buildings spread farther apart, palm trees and low hills in the distance.**

**About a hundred yards down the surf, two men were fighting. They looked like TV wrestlers, muscular, with beards and long hair. Both wore flowing Greek tunics, one trimmed in blue, the other in green.**

"They act like it all the time." Apollo said.

Everyone but the two brothers nodded in agreement.

**They grappled with each other, wrestled, kicked and head-butted, and every time they connected, lightning flashed, the sky grew darker, and the wind rose.**

**I had to stop them. I didn't know why. But the harder I ran, the more the wind blew me back, until I was running in place, my heels digging uselessly in the sand.**

**Over the roar of the storm, I could hear the blue-robed one yelling at the green-robed one,**_**Give it back! Give it back!**_**Like a kindergartner fighting over a toy.**

**The waves got bigger, crashing into the beach, spraying me with salt.**

**I yelled,**_**Stop it! Stop fighting!**_

"Not going to work, only Athena can break their fights, oh and Hestia can too." Hermes said.

**The ground shook. Laughter came from somewhere under the earth, and a voice so deep and evil it turned my blood to ice**_**.**_

_**Come down, little hero,**_**the voice crooned.**_**Come down!**_

Everyone turned to look at Hades.

"How should I know, it hasn't happen yet." Hades shrugged.

**The sand split beneath me, opening up a crevice straight down to the center of the earth. My feet slipped, and darkness swallowed me.**

Poseidon glared at Hades

**I woke up, sure I was falling.**

"For Annabeth?" Aphrodite teased.

"Oh that one for sure." Ryena said.

**I was still in bed in cabin three. My body told me it was morning, but it was dark outside, and thunder rolled across the hills. A storm was brewing. I hadn't dreamed that.**

**I heard a clopping sound at the door, a hoof knocking on the threshold.**

**"Come in?"**

**Grover trotted inside, looking worried. "Mr. D wants to see you."**

Mr. D looked up with a bored expression.

**"Why?"**

**"He wants to kill... I mean, I'd better let him tell you."**

**Nervously, I got dressed and followed, sure that I was in huge trouble.**

"What gave it away?" Nico asked mockingly.

**For days, I'd been half expecting a summons to the Big House. Now that I was declared a son of Poseidon, one of the Big Three gods who weren't supposed to have kids, I figured it was a crime for me just to be alive.**

"Oh that's so true." Thalia smirked.

**The other gods had probably been debating the best way to punish me for existing,**

**and now Mr. D was ready to deliver their verdict. Over Long Island Sound, the sky looked like ink soup coming to a boil.**

"You have a weird way of describing things." Leo stated.

**A hazy curtain of rain was coming in our direction. I asked Grover if we needed an umbrella.**

**"No," he said. "It never rains here unless we want it to."**

**I pointed at the storm. "What the heck is that, then?"**

"Father." Athena said.

**He glanced uneasily at the sky. "It'll pass around us. Bad weather always does."**

**I realized he was right. In the week I'd been here, it had never even been overcast. The few rain clouds I'd seen had skirted right around the edges of the valley.**

**But this storm ... this one was huge.**

**At the volleyball pit, the kids from Apollo's cabin were playing a morning game against the satyrs. Dionysus's twins were walking around in the strawberry fields, making the plants grow. Everybody was going about their normal business, but they looked tense. They kept their eyes on the storm.**

**Grover and I walked up to the front porch of the Big House. Dionysus sat at the pinochle table in his tiger-striped Hawaiian shirt with his Diet Coke, just as he had on my first day. Chiron sat across the table in his fake wheel chair. They were playing against invisible opponents-two sets of cards hovering in the air.**

"Which Mr. D lost." Travis whispered.

The demi-gods chuckled along with Chiron.

**"Well, well," Mr. D said without looking up. "Our little celebrity."**

**I waited.**

**"Come closer," Mr. D said. "And don't expect me to bow to you, mortal, just because old Barnacle-Beard is your father."**

"Barnacle Beard? Really does everyone use the nicknames Athena makes up?" Poseidon asked.

"Yep." The gods but Poseidon and Athena said.

**A net of lightning flashed across the clouds. Thunder shook the windows of the house.**

**"Blah, blah, blah," Dionysus said.**

**Chiron feigned interest in his pinochle cards. Grover cowered by the railing, his hooves clopping back and forth.**

**"If I had my way," Dionysus said, "I would cause your molecules to erupt in flames. We'd sweep up the ashes and be done with a lot of trouble.**

"YOU WILL NOT BURN MY SON!" Poseidon yelled.

**But Chiron seems to feel this would be against my mission at this cursed camp: to keep you little brats safe from harm."**

**"Spontaneous combustion **_**is **_**a form of harm, Mr. D," Chiron put in.**

**"Nonsense," Dionysus said. "Boy wouldn't feel a thing. Nevertheless, I've agreed to restrain myself. I'm thinking of turning you into a dolphin instead, sending you back to your father."**

"Don't even think about it."

**"Mr. D—" Chiron warned.**

**"Oh, all right," Dionysus relented. "There's one more option. But it's deadly foolishness." Dionysus rose, and the invisible players' cards dropped to the table. "I'm off to Olympus for the emergency meeting. If the boy is still here when I get back, I'll turn him into an Atlantic bottlenose. Do you understand? And Perseus Jackson,**

The demigods gasped.

**if you're at all smart,**

Thalia snorted "He isn't.

"Not at all." Nico said.

**you'll see that's a much more sensible choice than what Chiron feels you must do."**

**Dionysus picked up a playing card, twisted it, and it became a plastic rectangle. A credit card? No. A security pass.**

**He snapped his fingers.**

**The air seemed to fold and bend around him. He became a hologram, then a wind, then he was gone, leaving only the smell of fresh-pressed grapes lingering behind.**

Dionysus smiled weakly and sadly.

**Chiron smiled at me, but he looked tired and strained. "Sit, Percy, please. And Grover."**

**We did.**

**Chiron laid his cards on the table, a winning hand he hadn't gotten to use.**

"Really." Dionysus said.

**"Tell me, Percy," he said. "What did you make of the hellhound?"**

**Just hearing the name made me shudder.**

**Chiron probably wanted me to say,**_**Heck, it was nothing. I eat hellhounds for breakfast**_

The gods, except Poseidon and Hestia, snorted.

**But I didn't feel like lying.**

"Good." Hera said

**"It scared me," I said. "If you hadn't shot it, I'd be dead."**

"Thank-you Chiron." Sally smiled.

"You're very welcome." Chiron smiled back.

**"You'll meet worse, Percy. Far worse, before you're done."**

**"Done ... with what?"**

**"Your quest, of course. Will you accept it?"**

**I glanced at Grover, who was crossing his fingers.**

"I wanted to go for the fun and to keep my best-friend safe." Grover said.

"You truly are a good friend." Hestia said.

**"Um, sir," I said, "you haven't told me what it is yet."**

**Chiron grimaced. "Well, that's the hard part, the details."**

**Thunder rumbled across the valley. The storm clouds had now reached the edge of the beach. As far as I could see, the sky and the sea were boiling together.**

**"Poseidon and Zeus," I said. "They're fighting over something valuable ... something that was stolen, aren't they?"**

**Chiron and Grover exchanged looks.**

"I hate it when they do that." Annabeth huffed

"I hate it when you and Chiron do it." Thalia said.

**Chiron sat forward in his wheelchair. "How did you know that?"**

**My face felt hot. I wished I hadn't opened my big mouth. "The weather since Christmas has been weird, like the sea and the sky are fighting. Then I talked to Annabeth, and she'd overheard something about a theft.**

**And ... I've also been having these dreams."**

"Yeah, dreams about fighting animals and wrestlers." Hephaestus laughed.

**"I knew it," Grover said.**

**"Hush, satyr," Chiron ordered.**

"Yeah. Hush Satyr." Connor said.

"It's starting to get the part, where Zeus finds out and might be a big fight." Travis whispered.

**"But it is his quest!" Grover's eyes were bright with excitement. "It must be!"**

**"Only the Oracle can determine."**

"Rachel?" Piper asked.

"No not yet I don't come in until the third book." Rachel said.

**Chiron stroked his bristly beard. "Nevertheless, Percy, you are correct. Your father and Zeus are having their worst quarrel in centuries.**

The gods and demigods snorted

"That's saying a lot." Hades said.

**They are fighting over something valuable that was stolen. To be precise: a lightning bolt."**

"WHO STOL MY LIGHTING BOLT?!"

"Father please calm down, we'll find out, but we can't do anything about it, this what the Fates have planned, clam down and we'll continue reading."

**I laughed nervously. "A **_**what**_**?"**

**"Do not take this lightly," Chiron warned. "I'm not talking about some tinfoil-covered zigzag you'd see in a second-grade play. I'm talking about a two-foot-long cylinder of high-grade celestial bronze, capped on both ends with god-level explosives."**

"Sweet! Who made it?" Leo asked.

"The cyclops did." Zeus said.

**"Oh."**

**"Zeus's master bolt," Chiron said, getting worked up now. "The symbol of his power, from which all other lightning bolts are patterned. The first weapon made by the Cyclopes for the war against the Titans, the bolt that sheered the top off Mount Etna and hurled Kronos from his throne; the master bolt, which packs enough power to make mortal hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers."**

"Ok that's even sweeter!"

**"And it's missing?"**

"Stolen." Zeus said while scowling.

**"Stolen," Chiron said.**

**"By who?"**

"By whom." Athena corrected.

**"By **_**whom**_**," Chiron corrected.**

Athena and Chiron shard a smile.

"Once a teacher always a teacher." Grover chuckled

**Once a teacher, always a teacher.**

Grover and Percy high-five.

**"By you."**

"POSEIDON!" Zeus stood up, so did Poseidon.

"OH DON'T YOU DARE PUT THE BLAM ON ME!"

Athena got up and in between her Father and uncle.

"Father please, Perseus could not have stolen it, he only just found out." Athena said.

Zeus glared at Poseidon and went back to his throne. Poseidon did too along with Athena to hers.

**My mouth fell open.**

**"At least"—Chiron held up a hand—"that's what Zeus thinks.**

**During the winter solstice, at the last council of the gods, Zeus and Poseidon had an argument.**

"Same old. Same old." Hermes said.

"Nothing new." Apollo added

**The usual nonsense: 'Mother Rhea always liked you best,' 'Air disasters are more spectacular than sea disasters,' etcetera.**

**Afterward, Zeus realized his master bolt was missing, taken from the throne room under his very nose. He immediately blamed Poseidon.**

Poseidon glared at Zeus.

**Now, a god cannot usurp another god's symbol of power directly—that is forbidden by the most ancient of divine laws. But Zeus believes your father convinced a human hero to take it."**

"And he blames my son."

**"But I didn't—"**

**"Patience and listen, child," Chiron said. "Zeus has good reason to be suspicious. The forges of the Cyclopes are under the ocean, which gives Poseidon some influence over the makers of his brother's lightning. Zeus believes Poseidon has taken the master bolt, and is now secretly having the Cyclopes build an arsenal of illegal copies, which might be used to topple Zeus from his throne.**

**The only thing Zeus wasn't sure about was which hero Poseidon used to steal the bolt. Now Poseidon has openly claimed you as his son. You were in New York over the winter holidays. You could easily have snuck into Olympus. Zeus believes he has found his thief."**

**"But I've never even been to Olympus! Zeus is crazy!"**

Thunder rolled outside Olympus.

"I'm not crazy." Zeus said.

"Sure you are, you think my son stole the bolt, WHEN HE"S ONLY FINDING OUT ABOUT US!" Poseidon yelled.

**Chiron and Grover glanced nervously at the sky. The clouds didn't seem to be parting around us, as Grover had promised. They were rolling straight over our valley, sealing us in like a coffin lid.**

**"Er, Percy ...?" Grover said. "We don't use the **_**c-**_**word to describe the Lord of the Sky."**

**"Perhaps **_**paranoid,"**_**Chiron suggested.**

"Really Chiron." Zeus said.

"Well it was true at the time, My Lord, like Lord Poseidon said, he was only just finding out about us and you blame him for stealing it.

**"Then again, Poseidon has tried to unseat Zeus before. I believe that was question thirty-eight on your final exam..." He looked at me as if he actually expected me to remember question thirty-eight.**

**How could anyone accuse me of stealing a god's weapon? I couldn't even steal a slice of pizza from Gabe's poker party without getting busted.**

"Really?"

"No every time I did he would put his cigarettes on my hand."

**Chiron was waiting for an answer.**

**"Something about a golden net?" I guessed. "Poseidon and Hera and a few other gods ... they, like, trapped Zeus and wouldn't let him out until he promised to be a better ruler, right?"**

"Well he's safe way there, he needs to stop cheating on Hera." Aphrodite said.

"Oh and you should talk." Hephaestus grumbled.

**"Correct," Chiron said. "And Zeus has never trusted Poseidon since.**

**Of course, Poseidon denies stealing the master bolt. He took great offense at the accusation. The two have been arguing back and forth for months, threatening war. And now, you've come along—the proverbial last straw."**

**"But I'm just a kid!"**

"Who can't even steal a slice of pizza from an over grown skunk." Hermes added.

**"Percy," Grover cut in, "if you were Zeus, and you already thought your brother was plotting to overthrow you, then your brother suddenly admitted he had broken the sacred oath he took after World War II, that he's fathered a new mortal hero who might be used as a weapon against you... Wouldn't that put a twist in your toga?"**

**"But I didn't do anything. Poseidon—my dad—he didn't really have this master bolt stolen, did he?"**

"No." Poseidon glared at Zeus again.

**Chiron sighed. "Most thinking observers would agree that thievery is not Poseidon's style. But the Sea God is too proud to try convincing Zeus of that. Zeus has demanded that Poseidon return the bolt by the summer solstice. That's June twenty-first, ten days from now. Poseidon wants an apology for being called a thief by the same date. I hoped that diplomacy might prevail, that Hera or Demeter or Hestia would make the two brothers see sense.**

Hera, Demeter and Hestia smiled.

"Why thank-you Chiron, but sadly, only Athena and Hestia can get those two pig-heads to stop fighting.

**But your arrival has inflamed Zeus's temper. Now neither god will back down. Unless someone intervenes, unless the master bolt is found and returned to Zeus before the solstice, there will be war. And do you know what a full-fledged war would look like, Percy?"**

"Awesome." Ares grinned.

**"Bad?" I guessed.**

Everyone snorted.

**"Imagine the world in chaos. Nature at war with itself. Olympians forced to choose sides between Zeus and Poseidon.**

**Destruction. Carnage. Millions dead. Western civilization turned into a battleground so big it will make the Trojan War look like a water-balloon fight."**

"Whoa." Leo said "That is bad."

**"Bad," I repeated.**

Everyone chuckled.

**"And you, Percy Jackson, would be the first to feel Zeus's wrath."**

The chuckles died down.

"No, he will not." Poseidon glared.

**It started to rain. Volleyball players stopped their game and stared in stunned silence at the sky.**

_**I **_**had brought this storm to Half-Blood Hill. Zeus was punishing the whole camp because of me.**

"Oh no." Nico groaned

"What?" Demeter asked

"He always finds a way to blame himself for the bad things that are happening; therefore he also tries to find a way to fix it." Thalia explained.

**I was furious.**

"Not a good thing." Travis shook his head.

**"So I have to find the stupid bolt,"**

Thunder boomed.

**I said. "And return it to Zeus."**

**"What better peace offering," Chiron said, "than to have the son of Poseidon return Zeus's property?"**

**"If Poseidon doesn't have it, where is the thing?"**

**"I believe I know." Chiron's expression was grim. "Part of a prophecy I had years ago ... well, some of the lines make sense to me, now. But before I can say more, you must officially take up the quest. You must seek the counsel of the Oracle."**

Apollo smiled.

**"Why can't you tell me where the bolt is beforehand?"**

"That'd be too easy." Apollo smiled

**"Because if I did, you would be too afraid to accept the challenge."**

Poseidon gulped

**I swallowed. "Good reason."**

**"You agree then?"**

"Does he have a choice?" Demeter asked

**I looked at Grover, who nodded encouragingly.**

Grover smiled.

**Easy for him. I was the one Zeus wanted to kill.**

**"All right," I said. "It's better than being turned into a dolphin."**

Dionysus snorted.

**"Then it's time you consulted the Oracle," Chiron said. "Go upstairs, Percy Jackson, to the attic. When you come back down, assuming you're still sane, we will talk more."**

**Four flights up, the stairs ended under a green trap door.**

**I pulled the cord. The door swung down, and a wooden ladder clattered into place.**

**The warm air from above smelled like mildew and rotten wood and something else ... a smell I remembered from biology class. Reptiles. The smell of snakes.**

Aphrodite wrinkled her nose.

**I held my breath and climbed.**

**The attic was filled with Greek hero junk: armor stands covered in cobwebs; once-bright shields pitted with rust; old leather steamer trunks plastered with stickers saying ITHAKA, CIRCE'S ISLE, and LAND OF THE AMAZONS. One long table was stacked with glass jars filled with pickled **_**things**_—**severed hairy claws, huge yellow eyes, various other parts of monsters. A dusty mounted trophy on the wall looked like a giant snake's head, but with horns and a full set of shark's teeth. The plaque read, HYDRA HEAD #1, WOODSTOCK, N.Y., 1969.**

**By the window, sitting on a wooden tripod stool, was the most gruesome memento of all: a mummy.**

Aphrodite and most of the girls in the room shivered.

"A mummy?" Piper asked "Cool."

"You sure she's you're daughter?" Ares asked.

"Yes I'm sure, she's beautiful like me, who cares if she a tomboy, I'm prod of her." Aphrodite said.

**Not the wrapped-in-cloth kind, but a human female body shriveled to a husk. She wore a tie-dyed sundress, lots of beaded necklaces, and a headband over long black hair. The skin of her face was thin and leathery over her skull, and her eyes were glassy white slits, as if the real eyes had been replaced by marbles; she'd been dead a long, long time.**

This time, everyone shivered.

**Looking at her sent chills up my back. And that was before she sat up on her stool and opened her mouth. A green mist poured from the mummy's mouth, coiling over the floor in thick tendrils, hissing like twenty thousand snakes. I stumbled over myself trying to get to the trap door, but it slammed shut.**

"Just like in horror movies." Connor said.

**Inside my head, I heard a voice, slithering into one ear and coiling around my brain:**

_**I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seeker, and ask.**_

**I wanted to say,**_**No thanks, wrong door, just looking for the bathroom.**_

Everyone laughed.

"Only you could think something so stupid and funny at the same time." Thalia laughed.

**But I forced myself to take a deep breath.**

**The mummy wasn't alive. She was some kind of gruesome receptacle for something else, the power that was now swirling around me in the green mist. But its presence didn't feel evil, like my demonic math teacher Mrs. Dodds or the Minotaur.**

**It felt more like the Three Fates I'd seen knitting the yarn outside the highway fruit stand: ancient, powerful, and definitely **_**not **_**human. But not particularly interested in killing me, either.**.

**I got up the courage to ask, "What is my destiny?"**

"Well, isn't that dramatic." Hermes chuckled

"Just like his father." Zeus added

"No just like his uncle." Poseidon looked at Zeus.

Everyone laughed but for Zeus who glared at his brother.

**The mist swirled more thickly, collecting right in front of me and around the table with the pickled monster-part jars.**

**Suddenly there were four men sitting around the table, playing cards. Their faces became clearer. It was Smelly Gabe and his buddies.**

Everyone frowned

**My fists clenched,**

**though I knew this poker party couldn't be real. It was an illusion, made out of mist.**

**Gabe turned toward me and spoke in the rasping voice of the Oracle:**_**You shall go west, and face the god who has turned.**_

**His buddy on the right looked up and said in the same voice:**_**You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned.**_

Zeus sighed.

**The guy on the left threw in two poker chips, then said:**_**You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend.**_

The demigods and Grover's faces darkened.

**Finally, Eddie, our building superior, delivered the worst line of all:**_**And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end.**_

Everyone looked tense.

**The figures began to dissolve. At first I was too stunned to say anything, but as the mist retreated, coiling into a huge green serpent and slithering back into the mouth of the mummy, I cried, "Wait! What do you mean? What friend? What will I fail to save?"**

**The tail of the mist snake disappeared into the mummy's mouth. She reclined back against the wall. Her mouth closed tight, as if it hadn't been open in a hundred years.**

**The attic was silent again, abandoned, nothing but a room full of mementos.**

**I got the feeling that I could stand here until I had cob webs, too, and I wouldn't learn anything else.**

**My audience with the Oracle was over.**

**"Well?" Chiron asked me.**

**I slumped into a chair at the pinochle table. "She said I would retrieve what was stolen."**

**Grover sat forward, chewing excitedly on the remains of a Diet Coke can. "That's great!"**

**"What did the Oracle say **_**exactly?"**_**Chiron pressed. "This is important."**

"Yes, very important." Apollo said.

**My ears were still tingling from the reptilian voice. "She ... she said I would go west and face a god who had turned. I would retrieve what was stolen and see it safely returned."**

**"I knew it," Grover said.**

**Chiron didn't look satisfied. "Anything else?"**

**I didn't want to tell him.**

"Not a very good idea." Demeter said

**What friend would betray me? I didn't have that many.**

**And the last line—I would fail to save what mattered most. What kind of Oracle would send me on a quest and tell me,**_**Oh, by the way, you'll fail**_**.**

**How could I confess that?**

**"No," I said. "That's about it."**

"Percy." Sally said.

"I don't lie to Chiron, anymore Mom." Percy said.

**He studied my face. "Very well, Percy. But know this, the Oracle's words often have double meanings. Don't dwell on them too much. The truth is not always clear until events come to pass."**

**I got the feeling he knew I was holding back something bad,**

**and he was trying to make me feel better.**

"Chiron is always making us feel better."

**"Okay," I said, anxious to change topics. "So where do I go? Who's this god in the west?"**

"Hades is." Athena, Demeter said.

**"Ah, think, Percy," Chiron said. "If Zeus and Poseidon weaken each other in a war, who stands to gain?"**

**"Somebody else who wants to take over?" I guessed.**

"Which I don't" Hades said.

**"Yes, quite. Someone who harbors a grudge, who has been unhappy with his lot since the world was divided eons ago, whose kingdom would grow powerful with the deaths of millions.**

**Someone who hates his brothers for forcing him into an oath to have no more children, an oath that both of them have now broken."**

**I thought about my dreams, the evil voice that had spoken from under the ground.**

**"Hades."**

_Wasn't dad._ Nico thought.

**Chiron nodded. "The Lord of the Dead is the only possibility."**

"Oh sure, blam me." Hades said.

"No he isn't." Annabeth whispered.

"I know." Chiron whispered.

**A scrap of aluminum dribbled out of Grover's mouth. "Whoa, wait. Wh-what?"**

**"A Fury came after Percy," Chiron reminded him. "She watched the young man until she was sure of his identity, then tried to kill him. Furies obey only one lord: Hades."**

"Yeah, but I had nothing against him, only his Father, Thalia was the first time and only time I attacked any demigods minus Hercules of course."

Artemis' face darken by the name.

**"Yes, but—but Hades hates **_**all **_**heroes," Grover protested.**

"No only Hercules and my son, Hitler, those two are about it."

**"Especially if he has found out Percy is a son of Poseidon..."**

"Which, he has." Nico said

**"A hellhound got into the forest," Chiron continued.**

"Does everyone find a way to blame me?" Hades asked.

**"Those can only be summoned from the Fields of Punishment,**

"Many people can summon it." Hades said.

"Ok are you going to be doing this all of the chapter?!" Demeter asked.

"Would you if someone kept blaming you?"

Demeter was about to argue no but closed her mouth. She knew her brother/son-in-law was right.

**and it had to be summoned by someone within the camp. Hades must have a spy here.**

Clarisse frowned remembering Sliena.

**He must suspect Poseidon will try to use Percy to clear his name. Hades would very much like to kill this young half-blood before he can take on the quest."**

**"Great," I muttered. "That's two major gods who want to kill me."**

"If you tick me off yes." Hades said.

**"But a quest to ..." Grover swallowed. "I mean, couldn't the master bolt be in some place like Maine? Maine's very nice this time of year."**

**"Hades sent a minion to steal the master bolt," Chiron insisted.**

"No I didn't Zeus so shut your big mouth." Hades said as Zeus opened his mouth.

**"He hid it in the Underworld, knowing full well that Zeus would blame Poseidon.** **I don't pretend to understand the Lord of the Dead's motives perfectly, or why he chose this time to start a war, but one thing is certain. Percy must go to the Underworld, find the master bolt, and reveal the truth."**

"Really Chiron I'm the bad guy?" Hades asked.

"I'm sorry my Lord." Chiron said.

**A strange fire burned in my stomach. The weirdest thing was: it wasn't fear. It was anticipation. The desire for revenge. Hades had tried to kill me three times so far, with the Fury, the Minotaur, and the hellhound  
**

**It was his fault my mother had disappeared in a flash of light.**

Everyone glared at Hades.

"What ever I did it for must have been for a reason other wise I wouldn't have taken it.

**Now he was trying to frame me and my dad for a theft we hadn't committed.**

Poseidon glared harder.

**I was ready to take him on.**

Ares and Hades snorted.

"Right and if he does I'll eat Demeter's cereal for a week." Hades said.

The demigods all looked at each other before snickering.

"Yeah right that punk bet a god!" Ares laughed.

**Besides, if my mother was in the Underworld…**

**Whoa, boy, said the small part of my brain that was still sane. You're a kid. Hades is a god.**

"Yes, but that doesn't mean, he can't bet me." Hades said.

**Grover was trembling. He'd started eating pinochle cards like potato chips.**

**The poor guy needed to complete a quest with me so he could get his searcher's license, whatever that was, but how could I ask him to do this quest, especially when the Oracle said I was destined to fail? This was suicide.**

**"Look, if we know it's Hades," I told Chiron, "why can't we just tell the other gods? Zeus or Poseidon could go down to the Underworld and bust some heads."**

"I don't think those two block heads could find me in the first place, they don't know their way around the Underworld like I, do. And besides, that they would have to get past Cerberus, and he really doesn't like them." Hades smirked.

"Oh shut up." Poseidon and Zeus said.

**"Suspecting and knowing are not the same," Chiron said.**

Athena nodded

**"Besides, even if the other gods suspect Hades—and I imagine Poseidon does—**

Hades glared at Poseidon who glared back.

**they couldn't retrieve the bolt themselves. Gods cannot cross each other's territories except by invitation. That is another ancient rule. Heroes, on the other hand, have certain privileges.**

"And we do love paying visits to our family without them knowing all the fun on scaring them at times." Nico, Percy and Thalia said smirking.

**They can go anywhere, challenge anyone, as long as they're bold enough and strong enough to do it.**

"Or stupid enough right, Percy?" Nico asked.

Nico's answer was a splash to the face.

**No god can be held responsible for a hero's actions. Why do you think the gods always operate through humans?"**

The demigods glaried at the gods. All but Athena, Hestia, Hera and Artemis all looked away.

"Athena, you do it too!" Hermes said.

"No I ask for favors while I'm busy doing your work at times." Athena said.

"Apollo opened his mouth than closed it knowing she was right.

**"You're saying I'm being used."**

Poseidon frowned.

**"I'm saying it's no accident Poseidon has claimed you now. It's a very risky gamble, but he's in a desperate situation. He needs you."**

"I do." Poseidon smiled.

**My dad needs me.**

**Emotions rolled around inside me like bits of glass in a kaleidoscope.**

**I didn't know whether to feel resentful or grateful or happy or angry. Poseidon had ignored me for twelve years.**

Poseidon frowned.

**Now suddenly he needed me.**

"I don't anymore, Dad." Percy said.

**I looked at Chiron. "You've known I was Poseidon's son all along, haven't you?"**

**"I had my suspicions. As I said ... I've spoken to the Oracle, too."**

**I got the feeling there was a lot he wasn't telling me about his prophecy,**

"Yes, a whole lot." Thalia said.

**but I decided I couldn't worry about that right now. After all, I was holding back information too.**

**"So let me get this straight," I said. "I'm supposed go to the Underworld and confront the Lord of the Dead."**

Hades frowned

**"Check," Chiron said.**

**"Find the most powerful weapon in the universe."**

Zeus smirked smugly.

**"Check."**

**"And get it back to Olympus before the summer solstice, in ten days."**

**"That's about right."**

**I looked at Grover, who gulped down the ace of hearts.**

**"Did I mention that Maine is very nice this time of year?" he asked weakly.**

A couple of chuckles were let out.

**"You don't have to go," I told him. "I can't ask that of you."**

**"Oh..." He shifted his hooves. "No... it's just that satyrs and underground places... well..."**

"Not good." Grover said a frown on his face.

**He took a deep breath, then stood, brushing the shredded cards and aluminum bits off his T-shirt. "You saved my life, Percy. If ... if you're serious about wanting me along, I won't let you down."**

"Loyal, Grover as all ways." Athena and Hermes said.

Grover blushed.

**I felt so relieved I wanted to cry,**

**though I didn't think that would be very heroic.**

"No, no it wouldn't." Hephaestus chuckled.

**Grover was the only friend I'd ever had for longer than a few months.**

A few goddesses frowned at this.

**I wasn't sure what good a satyr could do against the forces of the dead,**

**but I felt better knowing he'd be with me.**

Grover smiled.

**"All the way, G-man." I turned to Chiron. "So where do we go? The Oracle just said to go west."**

**"The entrance to the Underworld is always in the west. It moves from age to age, just like Olympus. Right now, of course, it's in America."**

**"Where?"**

**Chiron looked surprised.**

**"I thought that would be obvious enough.**

**The entrance to the Underworld is in Los Angeles."**

**"Oh," I said. "Naturally. So we just get on a plane—"**

"Not on less you want to be dead." Zeus said rolling his eyes.

**"No!" Grover shrieked. "Percy, what are you thinking?**

**Have you ever been on a plane in your life?"**

**I shook my head, feeling embarrassed.**

**My mom had never taken me anywhere by plane.**

"You're very smart." Athena said

"Thank-you Lady Athena." Sally said smiling.

**She'd always said we didn't have the money. Besides, her parents had died in a plane crash.**

**"Percy, think," Chiron said.**

**"You are the son of the Sea God.**

**Your father's bitterest rival is Zeus, Lord of the Sky.**

**Your mother knew better than to trust you in an airplane. You would be in Zeus's domain. You would never come down again alive."**

**Overhead, lightning crackled. Thunder boomed.**

**"Okay," I said, determined not to look at the storm. "So, I'll travel overland."**

**"That's right," Chiron said. "Two companions may accompany you. Grover is one. The other has already volunteered, if you will accept her help."**

"Oh no." Athena said.

**"Gee," I said, feigning surprise. "Who else would be stupid enough to volunteer for a quest like this?"**

Annabeth pushed Percy a bit.

"Sorry Wise-girl, I didn't know it was you." Percy whispered.

**The air shimmered behind Chiron.**

**Annabeth became visible, stuffing her Yankees cap into her back pocket.**

Annabeth smiled.

**"I've been waiting a long time for a quest, Seaweed Brain," she said.**

**"Athena is no fan of Poseidon,**

Poseidon and Athena glared at each other.

**but if you're going to save the world, I'm the best person to keep you from messing up."**

"True but still." Athena mumbled.

**"Do you want my help or not?"**

**The truth was, I did. I needed all the help I could get.**

"So cute." Aphrodite smiled.

**"A trio," I said. "That'll work."**

"And thus starts the friendship." Chiron said.

**"Excellent," Chiron said. "This afternoon, we can take you as far as the bus terminal in Manhattan. After that, you are on your own."**

"How fast did that turn into a disaster." Grover sighed

Athena and Poseidon looked extremely worried.

**Lightning flashed. Rain poured down on the meadows that were never supposed to have violent weather.**

**"No time to waste," Chiron said. "I think you should all get packing."**


	13. I Ruin a Perfectly Good Bus,

**Sorry about taking so long to update.**

Ares closed the book and threw it to Hermes who was waving his hands and saying 'Oh oh oh me next.' As Hermes was about to grab the book Apollo grabbed it and opened it to the next chapter.

"Hey I wanted to read!"

"To bad." Apollo said sticking their tough out.

**"I Ruin a Perfectly Good Bus,"** Apollo read.

"What is it with you and ruining buses?" Paul asked.

"I don't know." Percy said.

**It didn't take me long to pack. I decided to leave the Minotaur horn in my cabin, which left me only an extra change of clothes and a toothbrush to stuff in a backpack Grover had found for me.**

"Found or stolen?" Travis asked.

"Found, you know I'm not the one to steal." Grover said.

"Funny how you stole, Jupiter's heart." Katie said.

"Excuse me?" Zeus said.

"Jupiter, she's a nymph, at camp and they're dating."

Aphrodite squealed happily.

**The camp store loaned me one hundred dollars in mortal money**

**and twenty golden drachmas. These coins were as big as Girl Scout cookies**

**and had images of various Greek gods stamped on one side and the Empire State Building on the other. The ancient mortal drachmas had been silver, Chiron told us, but Olympians never used less than pure gold**.

"Not true, Artemis, Athena and Hestia don't mind sliver." Hephaestus said.

**Chiron said the coins might come in handy for non-mortal transactions—whatever that meant.**

**He gave Annabeth and me each a canteen of nectar and a Ziploc bag full of ambrosia squares,**

**to be used only in emergencies, if we were seriously hurt. It was god food, Chiron reminded us. It would cure us of almost any injury,**

**but it was lethal to mortals**

**Too much of it would make a half-blood very, very feverish. An overdose would burn us up, literally.**

"I hate that!" The demi-gods said.

**Annabeth was bringing her magic Yankees cap, which she told me had been a twelfth-birthday present from her mom.**

Athena and Annabeth smiled but then Annabeth frowned, when she moved to pull the hat out, but it wasn't there.

"Ok who stole my hat?" Annabeth asked looking at the Stroll kids.

Travis checked his pockets.

"Don't look at me, I don't have it, Connor?"

Connor checked his pockets, before shaking his head no.

Annabeth looked, around for it. She put her head on Percy's shoulder not finding it. Percy hugged her tightly and rubbed her arm.

"Don't worry we'll find it." Nico said.

**She carried a book on famous classical architecture, written in Ancient Greek, to read when she got bored, and a long bronze knife, hidden in her shirt sleeve. I was sure the knife would get us busted the first time we went through a metal detector**.

**Grover wore his fake feet and his pants to pass as human. He wore a green Rasta-style cap, because when it rained his curly hair flattened and you could just see the tips of his horns. His bright orange backpack was full of scrap metal and apples to snack on.**

**In his pocket was a set of reed pipes his daddy goat had carved for him, even though he only knew two songs: Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 12 and Hilary Duff's "So Yesterday," both of which sounded pretty bad on reed pipes.**

"Jupiter loves that song." Grover said.

**We waved good-bye to the other campers, took one last look at the strawberry fields, the ocean, and the Big House, then hiked up Half-Blood Hill to the tall pine tree that used to be Thalia, daughter of Zeus.**

**Chiron was waiting for us in his wheelchair. Next to him stood the surfer dude I'd seen when I was recovering in the sick room. According to Grover, the guy was the camp's head of security.**

"The best and only security." Hera said.

**He supposedly had eyes all over his body so he could never be surprised. Today, though, he was wearing a chauffeur's uniform, so I could only see extra peepers on his hands, face and neck.**

**"This is Argus," Chiron told me. "He will drive you into the city, and, er, well, keep an eye on things."**

**I heard footsteps behind us.**

**Luke came running up the hill, carrying a pair of basketball shoes.**

Grover flinched.

**"Hey!" he panted. "Glad I caught you."**

**Annabeth blushed, the way she always did when Luke was around.**

Annabeth sighed. "I don't know why I did that."

**"Just wanted to say good luck," Luke told me. "And I thought ... um, maybe you could use these."**

**He handed me the sneakers, which looked pretty normal. They even smelled kind of normal.**

**Luke said,** **"**_**Maia**_**!"**

Hermes shot straight up in the air sighing he said Maia, flying down then back up when Apollo said Maia.

"Maia."

"Maia, Apollo knock it off!" Hermes said.

"Maia."

"Maia."

"Maia."

"Maia!"

"Apollo Stop it and read."Artemis said smacking his head. Hermes said Maia one last time and sat then leo got an idea and begon to work on his new project.

**White bird's wings sprouted out of the heels, startling me so much, I dropped them. The shoes flapped around on the ground until the wings folded up and disappeared.**

"Sweet, Dad can we have a pair?" Chris asked.

"Well..."Hermes said thinking.

"Please?!" Travis, Connor and Chris begged.

"All right but after this chapter."

The three sons of Hermes high-five.

**"Awesome!" Grover said.**

**Luke smiled. "Those served me well when I was on my quest. Gift from Dad.**

**Of course, I don't use them much these days..." His expression turned sad.**

**I didn't know what to say. It was cool enough that Luke had come to say good-bye. I'd been afraid he might resent me for getting so much attention the last few days.**

**But here he was giving me a magic gift... It made me blush almost as much as Annabeth.**

**"Hey, man," I said. "Thanks."**

**"Listen, Percy ..." Luke looked uncomfortable. "A lot of hopes are riding on you.**

**So just ... kill some monsters for me, okay?"**

**We shook hands. Luke patted Grover's head between his horns, then gave a good-bye hug to Annabeth, who looked like she might pass out.**

**After Luke was gone, I told her, "You're hyperventilating."**

Everyone laughed,

**"Am not."**

**"You let him capture the flag instead of you, didn't you?"**

**"Oh why do I want to go anywhere with you, Percy?"**

"Cause, you love me." Percy said.

"I sure do." Annabeth said kissing his check.

Percy turned his head and they kissed on the lips. Annabeth put her head on his shoulder.

**he stomped down the other side of the hill, where a white SUV waited on the shoulder of the road. Argus followed, jingling his car keys.**

**I picked up the flying shoes and had a sudden bad feeling. I looked at Chiron. "I won't be able to use these, will I?"**

**He shook his head. "Luke meant well, Percy. But taking to the air ... that would not be wise for you."**

**I nodded, disappointed, but then I got an idea. "Hey, Grover. You want a magic item?"**

"No." Grover whispered.

"Sorry, Grover." Percy said.

**His eyes lit up. "Me?"**

**Pretty soon we'd laced the sneakers over his fake feet, and the world's first flying goat boy was ready for launch.**

**"**_**Maia**_**!"****he shouted.**

"Maia, Apollo don't you dare."

**He got off the ground okay, but then fell over sideways so his backpack dragged through the grass. The winged shoes kept bucking up and down like tiny broncos.**

"What is a broncos?" Nico asked.

"It's a type of horse."Percy, Poseidon, Annabeth and Athena said.

**"Practice," Chiron called after him. "You just need practice!"**

**"Aaaaa!" Grover went flying sideways down the hill like a possessed lawn mower**

Everyone laughed.

**, heading toward the van.**

**Before I could follow, Chiron caught my arm. "I should have trained you better, Percy," he said. "If only I had more time. Hercules, Jason—they all got more training."**

**"That's okay. I just wish—"**

**I stopped myself because I was about to sound like a brat.**

**I was wishing my dad had given me a cool magic item to help on the quest, something as good as Luke's flying shoes, or Annabeth's invisible cap.**

Annabeth smiled sadly.

**"What am I thinking?" Chiron cried. "I can't let you get away without this."**

**He pulled a pen from his coat pocket and handed it to me. It was an ordinary disposable ballpoint, black ink, removable cap.**

"Wait that's the sword..." Artemis said.

"Yep." Poseidon said.

**Probably cost thirty cents.**

**"Gee," I said. "Thanks."**

**"Percy, that's a gift from your father.**

Poseidon smiled.

**I've kept it for years, not knowing you were who I was waiting for. But the prophecy is clear to me now. You are the one."**

**I remembered the field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when I'd vaporized Mrs. Dodds. Chiron had thrown me a pen that turned into a sword. Could this be...?**

**I took off the cap, and the pen grew longer and heavier in my hand. In half a second, I held a shimmering bronze sword with a double-edged blade, a leather-wrapped grip, and a flat hilt riveted with gold studs.**

**It was the first weapon that actually felt balanced in my hand.**

**"The sword has a long and tragic history that we need not go into," Chiron told me.**

Artemis, Thalia and Annabeth looked down sadly.

**"Its name is Anaklusmos."**

**"'Riptide,'" I translated, surprised the Ancient Greek came so easily.**

**"Use it only for emergencies," Chiron said, "and only against monsters. No hero should harm mortals unless absolutely necessary, of course, but this sword wouldn't harm them in any case."**

**I looked at the wickedly sharp blade. "What do you mean it wouldn't harm mortals?" How could it not?**

**"The sword is celestial bronze. Forged by the Cyclopes, tempered in the heart of Mount Etna, cooled in the River Lethe. It's deadly to monsters, to any creature from the Underworld, provided they don't kill you first. But the blade will pass through mortals like an illusion. They simply are not important enough for the blade to kill.**

"Thanks, I love how I'm important." Rachel said.

"Rachel, you're a very important and you know that." Chiron said.

"Yeah RED." Thalia said.

The demi-gods agreed, smiling Rachel, told Apollo to continue.

**And I should warn you: as a demigod, you can be killed by either celestial or normal weapons. You are **_**twice **_**as vulnerable."**

"Good to know." Connor said

**"Good to know."**

"Great now I'm doing it."

**"Now recap the pen."**

**I touched the pen cap to the sword tip and instantly Riptide shrank to a ballpoint pen again. I tucked it in my pocket, a little nervous, because I was famous for losing pens at school.**

**"You can't," Chiron said.**

**"Can't what?"**

**"Lose the pen," he said.**

"I noticed while I was teaching, him he always lost a pen." Chiron said.

**"It is enchanted. It will always reappear in your pocket. Try it."**

**I was wary, but I threw the pen as far as I could down the hill and watched it disappear in the grass.**

**"It may take a few moments," Chiron told me. "Now check your pocket."**

**Sure enough, the pen was there.**

**"Okay, that's **_**extremely **_**cool," I admitted.**

**"But what if a mortal sees me pulling out a sword?"**

**Chiron smiled. "Mist is a powerful thing, Percy."**

**"Mist?"**

**"Yes. Read **_**The Iliad.**_

"Read it, loved it." Percy and Poseidon said.

**It's full of references to the stuff. Whenever divine or monstrous elements mix with the mortal world, they generate Mist, which obscures the vision of humans.**

**You will see things just as they are, being a half-blood, but humans will interpret things quite differently. Remarkable, really, the lengths to which humans will go to fit things into their version of reality."**

**I put Riptide back in my pocket.**

**For the first time, the quest felt real. I was actually leaving Half-Blood Hill. I was heading west with no adult supervision, no backup plan, not even a cell phone. (Chiron said cell phones were traceable by monsters; if we used one, it would be worse than sending up a flare.) I had no weapon stronger than a sword to fight off monsters and reach the Land of the Dead.**

**"Chiron ..." I said. "When you say the gods are immortal... I mean, there was a time **_**before **_**them, right?"**

The elderly gods shivered.

**"Four ages before them, actually. The Time of the Titans was the Fourth Age, sometimes called the Golden Age,**

"Worst age ever." Demeter said.

"For once I agree with her."

**which is definitely a misnomer. This, the time of Western civilization and the rule of Zeus, is the Fifth Age."**

**"So what was it like ... before the gods?"**

"Horrible!" all the gods yelled.

**Chiron pursed his lips. "Even I am not old enough to remember that, child, but I know it was a time of darkness and savagery for mortals. Kronos, the lord of the Titans,**

The people from the future shivered.

**called his reign the Golden Age because men lived innocent and free of all knowledge.**

"Yeah right." Athena mumbled.

**But that was mere propaganda. The Titan king cared nothing for your kind except as appetizers or a source of cheap entertainment.**

**It was only in the early reign of Lord Zeus, when Prometheus the good Titan brought fire to mankind,**

**that your species began to progress, and even then Prometheus was branded a radical thinker. Zeus punished him severely, as you may recall.**

**Of course, eventually the gods warmed to humans, and Western civilization was born."**

**"But the gods can't die now, right? I mean, as long as Western civilization is alive, they're alive. So ... even if I failed, nothing could happen so bad it would mess up **_**everything ,**_**right?"**

"Nope."

**Chiron gave me a melancholy smile. "No one knows how long the Age of the West will last, Percy.**

**The gods are immortal, yes. But then, so were the Titans. **_**They **_**still exist, locked away in their various prisons, forced to endure endless pain and punishment, reduced in power,**

**but still very much alive. May the Fates forbid that the gods should ever suffer such a doom, or that we should ever return to the darkness and chaos of the past.**

**All we can do, child, is follow our destiny."**

**"Our destiny ... assuming we know what that is."**

**"Relax," Chiron told me. "Keep a clear head. And remember, you may be about to prevent the biggest war in human history."**

**"Relax," I said. "I'm very relaxed."**

"Lair." Hermes said.

"Maia." Percy said.

Hermes shot up in the air. Glaring at Percy.

"Maia." Hermes sat down and then told Apollo to continue.

**When I got to the bottom of the hill, I looked back. Under the pine tree that used to be Thalia, daughter of Zeus**

**Chiron was now standing in full horse-man form, holding his bow high in salute. Just your typical summer-camp send-off by your typical centaur.**

Everyone laughed.

**Argus drove us out of the countryside and into western Long Island. It felt weird to be on a highway again, Annabeth and Grover sitting next to me as if we were normal car poolers. After two weeks at Half-Blood Hill, the real world seemed like a fantasy. I found myself staring at every McDonald's, every kid in the back of his parents' car, every billboard and shopping mall.**

**"So far so good," I told Annabeth. "Ten miles and not a single monster."**

**She gave me an irritated look. "It's bad luck to talk that way, Seaweed Brain."**

**"Remind me again—why do you hate me so much?"**

**"I don't hate you."**

**"Could've fooled me."**

**She folded her cap of invisibility. "Look ... we're just not supposed to get along, okay? Our parents are rivals."**

Athena and Poseidon glared at each other.

_Man I love you._ Poseidon thought.

**"Why?"**

**She sighed. "How many reasons do you want? One time my mom caught Poseidon with his girlfriend in Athena's temple, which is **_**hugely **_**disrespectful.**

Athena crossed her arms and looked away from Poseidon.

"And I will never forgive you for that."

Poseidon _(though he didn't show it)_ was sad.

**Another time, Athena and Poseidon competed to be the patron god for the city of Athens. Your dad created some stupid saltwater spring for his gift.**** My mom created the olive tree. The people saw that her gift was better, so they named the city after her."**

"My gift was dumb." Poseidon said.

_I didn't want to be the goddess of them, I just did it to be near him. _Athena thought.

**"They must really like olives."**

**"Oh, forget it."**

**"Now, if she'd invented pizza—**_**that **_**I could understand."**

"Ok anyone else for pizza for lunch?" Apollo asked.

Everyone raised their hands.

"Ok, I'll make pizzas for lunch, with someone's help." Athena said.

Artemis slowly raised her hand to Poseidon's ear and flicked it. Poseidon moved his hand swiping her hand away, but also volunteering to help, Athena.

"Um... Ok, Poseidon you want to help?"

Poseidon looked at his hand then back at her.

"Um... sure I guess so." Athena and Poseidon looked away from each other, and Poseidon sent a glare at Artemis who shrugged giggling.

**"I said, forget it!"**

Aphrodite sighed "Ah, young love!"

**In the front seat, Argus smiled. He didn't say anything, but one blue eye on the back of his neck winked at me.**

Everyone but Annabeth and Percy laughed.

"He knew you two would be cute together!" Aphrodite squealed.

**Traffic slowed us down in Queens. By the time we got into Manhattan it was sunset and starting to rain.**

**Argus dropped us at the Greyhound Station on the Upper East Side, not far from my mom and Gabe's apartment. Taped to a mailbox was a soggy flyer with my picture on it: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY?**

**I ripped it down before Annabeth and Grover could notice.**

Annabeth and Grover sighed "We noticed"

**Argus unloaded our bags, made sure we got our bus tickets, then drove away, the eye on the back of his hand opening to watch us as he pulled out of the parking lot.**

**I thought about how close I was to my old apartment. On a normal day, my mom would be home from the candy store by now. Smelly Gabe was probably up there right now, playing poker, not even missing her.**

Poseidon, Paul and Percy growled.

Sally kissed both men on the cheeks and smiled at Poseidon.

**Grover shouldered his backpack. He gazed down the street in the direction I was looking. "You want to know why she married him, Percy?"**

**I stared at him. "Were you reading my mind or something?"**

"Just his emotions." Grover shrugged.

**"Just your emotions." He shrugged.**

**"Guess I forgot to tell you satyrs can do that. You were thinking about your mom and your stepdad, right?"**

**I nodded, wondering what else Grover might've forgotten to tell me.**

**"Your mom married Gabe for **_**you,"**_**Grover told me. "You call him 'Smelly,' but you've got no idea. The guy has this aura…. Yuck. I can smell him from here. I can smell traces of him on you, and you haven't been near him for a week."**

**"Thanks," I said. "Where's the nearest shower?"**

Everyone laughed.

**"You should be grateful, Percy. Your stepfather smells so repulsively human he could mask the presence of any demigod.**

"Ok I like him for that, other then that, I want to feed him to the kraken." Poseidon growled.

**As soon as I took a whiff inside his Camaro, I knew: Gabe has been covering your scent for years. If you hadn't lived with him every summer, you probably would've been found by monsters a long time ago. Your mom stayed with him to protect you. She was a smart lady. She must've loved you a lot to put up with that guy—if that makes you feel any better."**

"I love you mom." Percy said hugging her tightly.

"Love you too son." Sally said hugging her son tightly.

**It didn't, but I forced myself not to show it.**

"It showed anyway." Grover said.

**I'll see her again, I thought. She isn't gone.**

**I wondered if Grover could still read my emotions, mixed up as they were.**

**I was glad he and Annabeth were with me,**

Annabeth and Grover smiled.

**but I felt guilty that I hadn't been straight with them. I hadn't told them the real reason I'd said yes to this crazy quest.**

**The truth was, I didn't care about retrieving Zeus's lightning bolt,**

**or saving the world, or even helping my father out of trouble.**

Poseidon looked down sadly.

**The more I thought about it, I resented Poseidon for never visiting me, never helping my mom, never even sending a lousy child-support check.**

"Oh I visited, you were mostly asleep.

**He'd only claimed me because he needed a job done.**

No, I thought it was about time I claimed you.

**All I cared about was my mom. Hades had taken her unfairly and Hades was going to give her back.**

Hades raised an eyebrow at this.

_**You will be betrayed by one who calls you a friend,**_**the Oracle whispered in my mind.**_**You will fail to save what matters most in the end.**_

_**Shut up,**_**I told it.**

**The rain kept coming down.**

**We got restless waiting for the bus and decided to play some Hacky Sack with one of Grover's apples. Annabeth was unbelievable.**

"Awww! He thought you were unbelievable!" Aphrodite cooed

**She could bounce the apple off her knee, her elbow, her shoulder, whatever. I wasn't too bad myself.**

"EGO ALERT!" The Stolls yelled, making Katie punch them both

**The game ended when I tossed the apple toward Grover and it got too close to his mouth. In one mega goat bite, our Hacky Sack disappeared—core, stem, and all.**

Everyone laughed.

**Grover blushed. He tried to apologize, but Annabeth and I were too busy cracking up. **

**Finally the bus came. As we stood in line to board, Grover started looking around, sniffing the air like he smelled his favorite school cafeteria delicacy—enchiladas.**

**"What is it?" I asked.**

**"I don't know," he said tensely. "Maybe it's nothing."**

"Oh it was something all right."Percy said.

**But I could tell it wasn't nothing. I started looking over my shoulder, too.**

**I was relieved when we finally got on board and found seats together in the back of the bus. We stowed our back packs. Annabeth kept slapping her Yankees cap nervously against her thigh.**

**As the last passengers got on, Annabeth clamped her hand onto my knee.**

Aphrodite was about to squeal but Hephaestus gentelly covered her mouth with

**"Percy."**

**An old lady had just boarded the bus. She wore a crumpled velvet dress, lace gloves, and a shapeless orange-knit hat that shadowed her face, and she carried a big paisley purse. When she tilted her head up, her black eyes glittered, and my heart skipped a beat.**

"Oh really?" Aphrodtie asked.

**It was Mrs. Dodds.**

Poseidon sent a glare at Hades.

**Older, more withered, but definitely the same evil face.**

**I scrunched down in my seat.**

**Behind her came two more old ladies: one in a green hat, one in a purple hat. Otherwise they looked exactly like Mrs. Dodds—same gnarled hands, paisley handbags, wrinkled velvet dresses. Triplet demon grandmothers.**

"HADES!" Poseidon and Athena yelled.

**They sat in the front row, right behind the driver. The two on the aisle crossed their legs over the walkway, making an X. It was casual enough, but it sent a clear message: nobody leaves.**

**The bus pulled out of the station, and we headed through the slick streets of Manhattan. "She didn't stay dead long," I said, trying to keep my voice from quivering. "I thought you said they could be dispelled for a lifetime."**

"I said if he was lucky." Annabeth said

**"I said if you're **_**lucky**_**," Annabeth said. "You're obviously not."**

**"All three of them," Grover whimpered.**_**"Di immortales!"**_

**"It's okay," Annabeth said, obviously thinking hard.**

**"The Furies. The three worst monsters from the Underworld. No problem. No problem. We'll just slip out the windows."**

**"They don't open," Grover moaned.**

Athena sent a glare at her uncle.

**"A back exit?" she suggested.**

**There wasn't one. Even if there had been, it wouldn't have helped. By that time, we were on Ninth Avenue, heading for the Lincoln Tunnel.**

**"They won't attack us with witnesses around," I said. "Will they?"**

**"Mortals don't have good eyes," Annabeth reminded me. "Their brains can only process what they see through the Mist."**

**"They'll see three old ladies killing us, won't they?"**

**She thought about it. "Hard to say. But we can't count on mortals for help. Maybe an emergency exit in the roof...?"**

"Is there?" Athena asked hopefully

**We hit the Lincoln Tunnel, and the bus went dark except for the running lights down the aisle. It was eerily quiet without the sound of the rain.**

**Mrs. Dodds got up. In a flat voice, as if she'd rehearsed it, she announced to the whole bus: "I need to use the rest-room."**

**"So do I," said the second sister.**

**"So do I," said the third sister.**

"Oh no."

**They all started coming down the aisle.**

**"I've got it," Annabeth said. "Percy, take my hat."**

**"What?"**

**"You're the one they want. Turn invisible and go up the aisle. Let them pass you. Maybe you can get to the front and get away."**

**"But you guys—"**

**"There's an outside chance they might not notice us," Annabeth said. "You're a son of one of the Big Three. Your smell might be overpowering."**

"He does smell a little weirder than other demigods" Grover chuckled

**"I can't just leave you."**

"No way never going to just leave you."

**"Don't worry about us," Grover said. "Go!"**

**My hands trembled. I felt like a coward, but I took the Yankees cap and put it on.**

"Say one word Ares and you'll get it." Poseidon growled.

**When I looked down, my body wasn't there anymore.**

"Well, no duh" Thalia grumbled "It's not called an invisibility cap for nothing"

**I started creeping up the aisle. I managed to get up ten rows, then duck into an empty seat just as the Furies walked past.**

Poseidon breathed in relief.

**Mrs. Dodds stopped, sniffing, and looked straight at me. My heart was pounding.**

Everyone caught their breaths.

**Apparently she didn't see anything.**

**She and her sisters kept going.**

Everyone sighed in relief

**I was free. I made it to the front of the bus. We were almost through the Lincoln Tunnel now. I was about to press the emergency stop button when I heard hideous wailing from the back row.**

**The old ladies were not old ladies anymore. Their faces were still the same—I guess those couldn't get any uglier—**

"On no they get uglier if they're mad.

**but their bodies had shriveled into leathery brown hag bodies with bat's wings and hands and feet like gargoyle claws. Their handbags had turned into fiery whips.**** The Furies surrounded Grover and Annabeth, lashing their whips, hissing: "Where is it? Where?"**

"They're not looking for Jackson are they?" Athena asked.

"Nope." Grover, Annabeth and Percy said.

**The other people on the bus were screaming, cowering in their seats. They saw **_**something,**_**all right.**

**"He's not here!" Annabeth yelled. "He's gone!"**

**The Furies raised their whips.**

**Annabeth drew her bronze knife. Grover grabbed a tin can from his snack bag and prepared to throw it.**

"First off it was all I had." Grover said as Clarisse, Renya and Ares said.

**What I did next was so impulsive and dangerous I should've been named ADHD poster child of the year.**

**The bus driver was distracted, trying to see what was going on in his rearview mirror.**

**Still invisible, I grabbed the wheel from him and jerked it to the left. Everybody howled as they were thrown to the right, and I heard what I hoped was the sound of three Furies smashing against the windows.**

"It was." Grover and Annabeth said.

"Yes." Percy said.

**"Hey!" the driver yelled. "Hey—whoa!"**

**We wrestled for the wheel. The bus slammed against the side of the tunnel, grinding metal, throwing sparks a mile behind us.**

"THat reminds me, you have to paty me 2,000 for your bike back or I use oit for scap metal." Hephaestus said.

**We careened out of the Lincoln Tunnel and back into the rainstorm, people and monsters tossed around the bus, cars plowed aside like bowling pins.**

"Wow." Apollo said. "He really should be named the ADHD Poster child of the year."

**Somehow the driver found an exit. We shot off the highway, through half a dozen traffic lights, and ended up barreling down one of those New Jersey rural roads where you can't believe there's so much nothing right across the river from New York. There were woods to our left, the Hudson River to our right, and the driver seemed to be veering toward the river.**

**Another great idea:**

"Not one word." Percy smiled as almost everyone opened their mouths.

**I hit the emergency brake. The bus wailed, spun a full circle on the wet asphalt, and crashed into the trees. The emergency lights came on. The door flew open. The bus driver was the first one out,**

**the passengers yelling as they stampeded after him. I stepped into the driver's seat and let them pass.**

**The Furies regained their balance. They lashed their whips at Annabeth while she waved her knife and yelled in Ancient Greek, telling them to back off.**

Athena beamed at Annabeth

**Grover threw tin cans.**

**I looked at the open doorway. I was free to go,**

"Not going to go though." Percy said.

**but I couldn't leave my friends. I took off the invisible cap. "Hey!"**

**The Furies turned, baring their yellow fangs at me, and the exit suddenly seemed like an excellent idea.**

**Mrs. Dodds stalked up the aisle, just as she used to do in class, about to deliver my F-math test. Every time she flicked her whip, red flames danced along the barbed leather.**

"That really is terrifying" Leo said

**Her two ugly sisters hopped on top of the seats on either side of her and crawled toward me like huge nasty lizards.**

"What a weird description" Demeter said

**"Perseus Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said, in an accent that was definitely from somewhere farther south than Georgia.**

"No, really?" Hades asked sarcastically while rolling his eyes.

**"You have offended the gods. You shall die."**

"Hades!"

"Not my fault she said that!"

**"I liked you better as a math teacher," I told her.**

"I do too."

**She growled.**

**Annabeth and Grover moved up behind the Furies cautiously, looking for an opening.**

**I took the ballpoint pen out of my pocket and uncapped it. Riptide elongated into a shimmering double-edged sword.**

**The Furies hesitated.**

**Mrs. Dodds had felt Riptide's blade before. She obviously didn't like seeing it again.**

**"Submit now," she hissed. "And you will not suffer eternal torment."**

"Nice try" Poseidon said

**"Nice try," I told her.**

Everyone laughed.

**"Percy, look out!" Annabeth cried.**

**Mrs****. Dodds lashed her whip around my sword hand while the Furies on the either side lunged at me.**

Everyone tensed

**My hand felt like it was wrapped in molten lead, but I managed not to drop Riptide. I stuck the Fury on the left with its hilt, sending her toppling backward into a seat. I turned and sliced the Fury on the right. As soon as the blade connected with her neck, she screamed and exploded into dust.**

"Awesome!" The Stolls yelled

**Annabeth got Mrs. Dodds in a wrestler's hold and yanked her backward while Grover ripped the whip out of her hands.**

"Go G-Man!" Travis and Connor said and high-fived with Grover

**"Ow!" he yelled. "Ow! Hot! Hot!"**

**The Fury I'd hilt-slammed came at me again, talons ready, but I swung Riptide and she broke open like a piñata.**

"Oh I love those!" Hermes and Apollo yelled.

**Mrs. Dodds was trying to get Annabeth off her back. She kicked, clawed, hissed and bit, but Annabeth held on**

Athena smiled at her proudly.

**while Grover got Mrs. Dodd's legs tied up in her own whip.**

"Cool!" Nico said "That was awesome Grover! Can you do that again? I can summon Alecto right now and if you kill her she won't get mad at you coz' I said so and she can't get mad at me coz' Dad will kill her!" Nico said super fast.

"Oh great" Thalia groaned "We have hyper-ten-year-old-mythomagic-addict-Nico again"

The demigods (except the trio) Rachel and Grover laughed

"What the Hades is 'Mythomagic'?" Hermes asked

**Finally they both shoved her backward into the aisle. Mrs. Dodds tried to get up, but she didn't have room to flap her bat wings, so she kept falling down.**

**"Zeus will destroy you!" she promised. "Hades will have your soul!"**

"OH NO HE WON"T!"

"DON"T WANT IT I HAVE ENOUGH SOULS AS IT IS!"

**"**_**Braccas meas vescimini**_**!" I yelled.**

**I wasn't sure where the Latin came from.**

**I think it meant "Eat my pants!"**

Everyone laughed.

**Thunder shook the bus. The hair rose on the back of my neck.**

**"Get out!" Annabeth yelled at me. "Now!" I didn't need any encouragement.**

"Don't have to tell me twice." Grover said.

**We rushed outside and found the other passengers wandering around in a daze, arguing with the driver, or running around in circles yelling, "We're going to die!"**

"Ok they are way overreact." Rachel said.

**A Hawaiian-shirted tourist with a camera snapped my photograph before I could recap my sword.**

"Super." Paul said.

**"Our bags!" Grover realized. "We left our—"**

_**BOOOOOM**_**!**

**The windows of the bus exploded as the passengers ran for cover. Lightning shredded a huge crater in the roof, but an angry wail from inside told me Mrs. Dodds was not yet dead.**

**"Run!" Annabeth said. "She's calling for reinforcements! We have to get out of here!"**

"Not fun." Annabeth, Thalia and Grover said.

**We plunged into the woods as the rain poured down, the bus in flames behind us, and nothing but darkness ahead.**


	14. We visit the garden gnome emporium

**Sorry about taking so long to update. TO everyone who noticed I spelled Grover's girlfriend's name wrong, I'll fix it and I'm sorry about that.**

Apollo handed the book to Artemis, who tossed it at Hermes who was pouting about not getting to red.

"Thank-you Art." Hermes said opening the book to the right chapter. "**We visit the garden gnome emporium.**"

"Why does that familiar?" Poseidon and Athena asked.

Annabeth, Percy and Grover gulped.

**In a way, it's nice to know there are Greek gods out there,**

"He likes us!" Apollo said.

**because you have someone to blame when things go wrong.**

"He liked us." Apollo said.

**For instance, when you're walking away from a bus that's just been attacked by monster hags and blown up by lightning,**

Poseidon and Athena glared at Hades and Zeus.

**and it's raining on top of everything else, most people might think that's just really bad luck; when you're a half-blood, you understand that some divine force really is trying to mess up your day.**

**So there we were, Annabeth and Grover and I, walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind us, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in our noses.**

"I've got to clean that river." Poseidon mumbled.

**Grover was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-****pupiled** and full of terror. "Three kindly ones. All at once."

"Sorry." Hades said quickly.

**I was pretty much in shock myself. The explosion of bus windows still rang in my ears. But Annabeth kept pulling us along, saying: "Come on! The farther away we get, the better."**

"Good." Poseidon and Athena said.

**"All our money was back there," I reminded her. "Our food and cloths. Everything."**

Another glare at Zeus from Poseidon and Athena.

**"Well, maybe if you hadn't decided to jump into the fight-"**

**"What did you want me to do? Let you get killed?"**

**"You didn't need to protect me, Percy. I would've been fine."**

**"Sliced like andwich bread," Grover put in, "but fine."**

**"Shut up, goat boy," said Annabeth.**

**Grover brayed mournfully. "Tin cans... a perfectly good bag of tin cans."**

"Really Grover that's all you cared about?" Clariesse asked.

"Goat side of me." Grover shrugged.

**We sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry.**

**After a few minutes, Annabeth fell into line next to me.**

**"Look, I..." her voice faltered. "I appreciate your coming back for us, okay? That was really brave."**

**"We're a team, right?"**

**She was silent for a few more steps. "It's just that if you died... aside for the fact that would really suck for you, it would mean the quest was over. This may be my only chance to see the real world."**

**The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow fades behind us, leaving us in almost total darkness. I couldn't see anything of Annabeth except a glint of her blond hair.**

"Athena's like that too sometimes." Hermes said.

Athena's face went red a bit and Poseidon sighed.

"What?" Athena asked.

"I um trying to figure why that title sounds familiar?" Poseidon lied.

**"You haven't left Camp Half-Blood since you were seven?" I asked her.**

**"No... only short field trips. My dad-"**

**"The history professor."**

**"Yeah. It didn't work out for me living at home. I mean, Camp Half-Blood is my home." She was rushing her words out now, as if she were afraid somebody might try to stop her.**

"No one will stop you Anna." Athena smiled at her daughter.

Annabeth smiled.

**"At camp you train and train. And that's all cool and everything, but the real world is where the monsters are. That's where you learn whether you're any good or not."**

**If I didn't know better, I could've sworn I herad doubt in her voice.**

**"You're pretty good with that knife," I said.**

**"You think so?"  
**

**"Anybody who can piggyback-ride a Fury is okay by me."**

"You have earned my respect doing that." Hades laughed.

**I couldn't really see, but I thought she might've smiled.**

"I did." Annabeth said.

**"You know," she said, "maybe I should tell you... Something funny back on the bus..."**

**Whatever she wanted to say was interrupted by a shrill _toot-toot-toot_, like the sound of an owl being tortured.**

"I hope not." Athena said.

**"Hey my reed pipes still work!" Grover cried. "If I could just remember a 'find path' song, we could get out of these woods!"**

**He puffed out a few notes, but the tone still sounded suspiciously like Hilary Duff.**

Many laughs come from the room.

**Instead of finding a path, I immediately slammed into a tree and got a nice sized knot on my head.**

Percy rubbed his head as Grover blushed as everyone laughed.

"Sorry." Grover mumbled.

**Add to the list of superpowers I did not have: infrared vision.**

**After tripping and cursing and generally feeling miserable for an****other mile or so, I started to see light up ahead: the colors of a neon sign. I could smell food. Fried, greasy, excellent food. I realized I hadn't eaten anything unhealthy since I'd arrived at Half-Blood Hill, where we lived on grapes, bread, cheese, and extra-lean-cut nymph-prepared barbecue. This boy needed a double cheeseburger.**

Thalia's stomach growled.

**We kept walking until I saw a deserted two-lane road through the trees. On the other side was a closed-down gas station, a tattered billboard for a 1990's movie, and one open business, which was the source of the neon light and the good smell.**

**It wasn't a fast-food restaurant like I'd hoped. It was one of those weird roadside curio shops that sell lawn flamingos and wooden Indians and cement grizzly bears and stuff like that. The main building was a long, low warehouse, surrounded by acres of statuary. The neon sign above the gate was impossible for me to read, because if there's anything worse for my dyslexia than regular English, it's red cursive neon English.**

Demigods nodded.

**To me, it looked like:**

Hermes looked at it and made a weird face.

**ATNYU MES GDERAN GOMEN MEPROUIM.**

"How did you manged to read that?" Apollo said.

**"What the heck does that say?" I asked.**

**"I don't know," Annabeth said.**

**She loved reading so much, I'd forgotten she was dyslexic, too.**

**Grover translated: "Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium."**

Athena was deep in thought and then her eyes widened. She looked at Annabeth and mouth 'Medusa?' Annabeth, Percy and Grover nodded. Athena paled and bite her lip.

"Thena? You alright?" Artemis asked.

Athena just waved Hermes to read.

**Flanking the entrance, as advertised, were two cement garden gnomes, ugly bearded little runts, smiling and waving, as if they were about to get their picture taken.**

**I crossed the street, following the smell of the hamburgers.**

**"Hey …" Grover warned.**

**"The lights are on inside," Annabeth said. "Maybe it's open."**

**"Snack bar," I said wistfully.**

**"Snack bar," she agreed.**

"We were hungry sorry!" Percy and Annabeth said.

**"Are you two crazy?" Grover said. "This place is weird."**

**We ignored him.**

Athena paled even more and Poseidon caught on along with Hades.

"You really do have bad luck." Hades said.

"You have no idea." Percy said.

**The front lot was a forest of statues: cement animals, cement children, even a cement satyr playing the pipes, which gave Grover the creeps.**

Grover shuddered.

**"Bla-ha-ha!" he bleated. "Looks like my Uncle Ferdinand!"**

"MEDUSA!" Everyone but Athena, Poseidon, Hades, Grover, Annabeth and Percy yelled.

The all nodded.

**We stopped at the warehouse door.**

**"Don't knock," Grover pleaded. "I smell monsters."**

**"Your nose is clogged up from the Furies," Annabeth told him. "All I smell is burgers. Aren't you hungry?"**

"Listen to Grover!" Athena and Poseidon said.

**"Meat!" he said scornfully. "I'm a vegetarian."**

**"You eat cheese enchiladas and aluminum cans," I reminded him.**

**"Those are vegetables. Come on. Let's leave. These statues are … looking at me."**

"My huntress and I feel that all the time." Artemis said.

**Then the door creaked open, and standing in front of us was a tall Middle Eastern woman-at least, I assumed she was Middle Eastern, because she wore a long black gown that covered everything but her hands, and her head was completely veiled. Her eyes glinted behind a curtain of black gauze, but that was about all I could make out. Her coffee-colored hands looked old, but well-manicured and elegant, so I imagined she was a grandmother who had once been a beautiful lady.**

"She was until Princess got to her." Ares smirked.

"Shut up and don't call me princess!" Athena snapped.

**Her accent sounded vaguely Middle Eastern, too. She said, "Children, it is too late to be out all alone. Where are your parents?"**

**"They're … um …" Annabeth started to say.**

**"We're orphans," I said.**

**"Orphans?" the woman said. The word sounded alien in her mouth. "But, my dears! Surely not!"**

**"We got separated from our caravan," I said. "Our circus caravan. The ringmaster told us to meet him at the gas station if we got lost, but he may have forgotten, or maybe he meant a different gas station. Anyway, we're lost. Is that food I smell?"**

"Mm about five points on lying." Hermes and his kids said.

**"Oh, my dears," the woman said. "You must come in, poor children. I am Aunty Em. Go straight through to the back of the warehouse, please. There is a dining area."**

**We thanked her and went inside.**

**Annabeth muttered to me, "Circus caravan?"**

**"Always have a strategy, right?"**

**"Your head is full of kelp."**

Percy smiled hugging Annabeth tighter.

**The warehouse was filled with more statues-people in all different poses, wearing all different outfits and with different expressions on their faces. I was thinking you'd have to have a pretty huge garden to fit even one of these statues, because they were all life-size. But mostly, I was thinking about food.**

**Go ahead, call me an idiot**

"Idiot!" The demigods said.

**for walking into a strange lady's shop like that just because I was hungry, but I do impulsive stuff sometimes. Plus, you've never smelled Aunty Em's burgers. The aroma was like laughing gas in the dentist's chair-it made everything else go away. I barely noticed Grover's nervous whimpers, or the way the statues' eyes seemed to follow me, or the fact that Aunty Em had locked the door behind us.**

Poseidon, Sally and Athena paled even more.

**All I cared about was finding the dining area. And sure enough, there it was at the back of the warehouse, a fast-food counter with a grill, a soda fountain, a pretzel heater, and a nacho cheese dispenser. Everything you could want, plus a few steel picnic tables out front.**

**"Please, sit down," Aunty Em said.**

**"Awesome," I said.**

**"Um," Grover said reluctantly, "we don't have any money, ma'am."**

**Before I could jab him in the ribs, Aunty Em said, "No, no, children. No money. This is a special case, yes? It is my treat, for such nice orphans."**

"Please leave." Poseidon said.

**"Thank you, ma'am," Annabeth said.**

**Aunty Em stiffened, as if Annabeth had done something wrong, but then the old woman relaxed just as quickly, so I figured it must've been my imagination.**

"I wish." Percy said.

**"Quite all right, Annabeth," she said. "You have such beautiful gray eyes, child." Only later did I wonder how she knew Annabeth's name, even though we had never introduced ourselves.**

**Our hostess disappeared behind the snack counter and started cooking. Before we knew it, she'd brought us plastic trays heaped with double cheeseburgers, vanilla shakes, and XXL servings of French fries.**

"I'm hungry." Apollo and Hermes said.

"We'll have lunch after this chapter." Hera said.

**I was halfway through my burger before I remembered to breathe.**

**Annabeth slurped her shake.**

**Grover picked at the fries, and eyed the tray's waxed paper liner as if he might go for that, but he still looked too nervous to eat.**

**"What's that hissing noise?" he asked.**

**I listened, but didn't hear anything. Annabeth shook her head.**

**"Hissing?" Aunty Em asked. "Perhaps you hear the deep-fryer oil. You have keen ears, Grover."**

**"I take vitamins. For my ears."**

"I do." Grover said taking out a small bottle and take one of the vitamins.

**"That's admirable," she said. "But please, relax."**

**Aunty Em ate nothing. She hadn't taken off her headdress, even to cook, and now she sat forward and interlaced her fingers and watched us eat. It was a little unsettling, having someone stare at me when I couldn't see her face, but I was feeling satisfied after the burger, and a little sleepy, and I figured the least I could do was try to make small talk with our hostess.**

**"So, you sell gnomes," I said, trying to sound interested.**

**"Oh, yes," Aunty Em said. "And animals. And people. Anything for the garden. Custom orders. Statuary is very popular, you know."**

Grover flinched.

**"A lot of business on this road?"**

**"Not so much, no. Since the highway was built… most cars, they do not go this way now. I must cherish every customer I get."**

**My neck tingled, as if somebody else was looking at me. I turned, but it was just a statue of a young girl holding an Easter basket. The detail was incredible, much better than you see in most garden statues. But something was wrong with her face. It looked as if she were startled, or even terrified.**

**"Ah," Aunty Em said sadly. "You notice some of my creations do not turn out well. They are marred. They do not sell. The face is the hardest to get right. Always the face."**

**"You make these statues yourself?" I asked.**

**"Oh, yes. Once upon a time, I had two sisters to help me in the business, but they have passed on, and Aunty Em is alone. I have only my statues. This is why I make them, you see. They are my company." The sadness in her voice sounded so deep and so real that I couldn't help feeling sorry for her.**

**Annabeth had stopped eating. She sat forward and said, "Two sisters?"**

"Oh thank gods." Athena said.

**"It's a terrible story," Aunty Em said. "Not one for children, really. You see, Annabeth, a bad woman was jealous of me,  
**

"I was not jealous I was angry." Athena said glaring at Poseidon.

"Sorry."

**long ago, when I was young. I had a… a boyfriend,**

"Only to get Athena jealous." Poseidon mumbled.

Athena's eyes widened and she looked at Poseidon.

"What did you say?" Athena asked.

"Nothing."

Everyone but Athena and the future guest laughed. They looked confused and Artemis mouth _'Hestia and I will explain later.'_

**you know, and this bad woman was determined to break us apart. She caused a terrible accident. My sisters stayed by me. They shared my bad fortune as long as they could, but eventually they passed on. They faded away. I alone have survived, but at a price. Such a price."**

**I wasn't sure what she meant, but I felt bad for her. My eyelids kept getting heavier, my full stomach making me sleepy. Poor old lady. Who would want to hurt somebody so nice?**

**"Percy?" Annabeth was shaking me to get my attention. "Maybe we should go. I mean, the ringmaster will be waiting."**

**She sounded tense. I wasn't sure why. Grover was eating the waxed paper off the tray now, but if Aunty Em found that strange, she didn't say anything.**

**"Such beautiful gray eyes," Aunty Em told Annabeth again. "My, yes, it has been a long time since I've seen gray eyes like those."**

**She reached out as if to stroke Annabeth's cheek, but Annabeth stood up abruptly.**

**"We really should go."**

"Please leave!" Poseidon, Sally and Athena said.

**"Yes!" Grover swallowed his waxed paper and stood up. "The ringmaster is waiting! Right!"**

**I didn't want to leave. I felt full and content. Aunty Em was so nice. I wanted to stay with her a while.**

"It was the food." Hermes said.

**"Please, dears," Aunty Em pleaded. "I so rarely get to be with children. Before you go, won't you at least sit for a pose?"**

**"A pose?" Annabeth asked warily.**

"NO!" Poseidon and Athena yelled.

**"A photograph. I will use it to model a new statue set. Children are so popular, you see. Everyone loves children."**

**Annabeth shifted her weight from foot to foot. "I don't think we can, ma'am. Come on, Percy-"**

**"Sure we can," I said. I was irritated with Annabeth for being so bossy, so rude to an old lady who'd just fed us for free. "It's just a photo, Annabeth. What's the harm?"**

"Lot's of harm." Thalia said.

**"Yes, Annabeth," the woman purred. "No harm."**

**I could tell Annabeth didn't like it, but she allowed Aunty Em to lead us back out the front door, into the garden of statues.**

**Aunty Em directed us to a park bench next to the stone satyr. "Now," she said, "I'll just position you correctly. The young girl in the middle, I think, and the two young gentlemen on either side."**

**"Not much light for a photo," I remarked.**

"Slow."

**"Oh, enough," Aunty Em said. "Enough for us to see each other, yes?"**

**"Where's your camera?" Grover asked.**

**Aunty Em stepped back, as if to admire the shot. "Now, the face is the most difficult. Can you smile for me please, everyone? A large smile?"**

**Grover glanced at the cement satyr next to him, and mumbled, "That sure does look like Uncle Ferdinand."**

**"Grover," Aunty Em chastised, "look this way, dear."**

**She still had no camera in her hands.**

**"Percy-" Annabeth said.**

**Some instinct warned me to listen to Annabeth, but I was fighting the sleepy feeling, the comfortable lull that came from the food and the old lady's voice.**

"Slow." Artemis said.

**"I will just be a moment," Aunty Em said. "You know, I can't see you very well in this cursed veil…."**

**"Percy, something's wrong," Annabeth insisted.**

**"Wrong?" Aunty Em said, reaching up to undo the wrap around her head. "Not at all, dear. I have such noble company tonight. What could be wrong?"**

**"That is Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover gasped.**

Grover flinched and his friends patted his back.

**"Look away from her!" Annabeth shouted. She whipped her Yankees cap onto her head and vanished. Her invisible hands pushed Grover and me both off the bench.**

"Thank you Annabeth" Poseidon said.

**I was on the ground, looking at Aunt Em's sandaled feet.**

**I could hear Grover scrambling off in one direction, Annabeth in another. But I was too dazed to move.**

"Please move." Sally and Poseidon said.

**Then I heard a strange, rasping sound above me. My eyes rose to Aunty Em's hands, which had turned gnarled and warty, with sharp bronze talons for fingernails.**

**I almost looked higher, but somewhere off to my left Annabeth screamed, "No! Don't!"**

"Thank-you."

**More rasping-the sound of tiny snakes, right above me, from … from about where Aunty Em's head would be.**

**"Run!" Grover bleated. I heard him racing across the gravel, yelling, "Maia!" to kick-start his flying sneakers.**

"Maia" Hermes said as his shoes started to raise him off his throne

**I couldn't move. I stared at Aunty Em's gnarled claws, and tried to fight the groggy trance the old woman had put me in.**

Poseidon growled.

**"Such a pity to destroy a handsome young face," she told me soothingly. "Stay with me, Percy. All you have to do is look up."**

**I fought the urge to obey. Instead I looked to one side and saw one of those glass spheres people put in gardens- a gazing ball. I could see Aunty Em's dark reflection in the orange glass; her headdress was gone, revealing her face as a shimmering pale circle. Her hair was moving, writhing like serpents.**

**Aunty Em.**

**Aunty "M."**

**How could I have been so stupid?**

Percy growled out 'stupid food.'

**Think, I told myself. How did Medusa die in the myth?**

"Killed by my namesake." Percy said.

**But I couldn't think. Something told me that in the myth Medusa had been asleep when she was attacked by my namesake, Perseus. She wasn't anywhere near asleep now. If she wanted, she could take those talons right now and rake open my face.**

Everyone paled.

**"The Gray-Eyed One did this to me, Percy," Medusa said, and she didn't sound anything like a monster. Her voice invited me to look up, to sympathize with a poor old grandmother. "Annabeth's mother, the cursed Athena, turned me from a beautiful woman into this."**

"Humph." Athena said.

"Sorry." Poseidon said.

"You're forgiven."

Poseidon smiled brightly. Apollo whispered to Artemis.

"Hermes and I are going to try and set him and Thena up, you in?"

"Yeah I'm in." Artemis whispered.

**"Don't listen to her!" Annabeth's voice shouted, somewhere in the statuary. "Run, Percy!"**

**"Silence!" Medusa snarled. Then her voice modulated back to a comforting purr. "You see why I must destroy the girl, Percy. She is my enemy's daughter. I shall crush her statue to dust. But you, dear Percy, you need not suffer."**

**"No," I muttered. I tried to make my legs move.**

**"Do you really want to help the gods?" Medusa asked. "Do you understand what awaits you on this foolish quest, Percy? What will happen if you reach the Underworld? Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear. You would be better off as a statue. Less pain. Less pain."**

**"Percy!" Behind me, I heard a buzzing sound, like a two-hundred-pound hummingbird in a nosedive. Grover yelled, "Duck!"**

"GO GROVER!" The demigods yelled.

**I turned, and there he was in the night sky, flying in from twelve o'clock with his winged shoes fluttering, Grover, holding a tree branch the size of a baseball bat. His eyes were shut tight, his head twitched from side to side. He was navigating by ears and nose alone.**

**"Duck!" he yelled again. "I'll get her!"**

**That finally jolted me into action. Knowing Grover, I was sure he'd miss Medusa and nail me. I dove to one side.**

**Thwack!**

**At first I figured it was the sound of Grover hitting a tree. Then Medusa roared with rage.**

**"You miserable satyr," she snarled. "I'll add you to my collection!"**

**"That was for Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover yelled back.**

"Go Grover!" Everyone cheered.

**I scrambled away and hid in the statuary while Grover swooped down for another pass.**

**Ker-whack!**

**"Arrgh!" Medusa yelled, her snake-hair hissing and spitting.**

**Right next to me, Annabeth's voice said, "Percy!"**

**I jumped so high my feet nearly cleared a garden gnome. "Jeez! Don't do that!"**

Annabeth kissed his cheek and and hugged him. Percy smiled and hugged her tighter too.

**Annabeth took off her Yankees cap and became visible. 'You have to cut her head off."**

**"What? Are you crazy? Let's get out of here."**

**"Medusa is a menace. She's evil. I'd kill her myself, but…" Annabeth swallowed, as if she were about to make a difficult admission. "But you've got the better weapon. Besides, I'd never get close to her. She'd slice me to bits because of my mother. You-you've got a chance."**

**"What? I can't-"**

**"Look, do you want her turning more innocent people into statues?"**

**She pointed to a pair of statue lovers, a man and a woman with their arms around each other, turned to stone by the monster.**

"Giving him hints dear?" Hestia giggled.

"N-no I just pointed." Annabeth said.

**Annabeth grabbed a green gazing ball from a nearby pedestal. "A polished shield would be better." She studied the sphere critically. "The convexity will cause some distortion. The reflection's size should be off by a factor of-"**

**"Would you speak English?"**

**"I am!"**

"Our English not so high teak English." Nico said.

**She tossed me the glass ball. "Just look at her in the glass. Never look at her directly."**

**"Hey, guys!" Grover yelled somewhere above us. "I think she's unconscious!"**

**"Roooaaarrr!"**

**"Maybe not," Grover corrected. He went in for another pass with the tree branch.**

**"Hurry," Annabeth told me. "Grover's got a great nose, but he'll eventually crash."**

**I took out my pen and uncapped it. The bronze blade of Riptide elongated in my hand.**

**I followed the hissing and spitting sounds of Medusa's hair.**

**I kept my eyes locked on the gazing ball so I would only glimpse Medusa's reflection, not the real thing. Then, in the green tinted glass, I saw her.**

**Grover was coming in for another turn at bat, but this time he flew a little too low. Medusa grabbed the stick and pulled him off course. He tumbled through the air and crashed into the arms of a stone grizzly bear with a painful "Ummphh!"**

"Ouch." Everyone said.

"Yeah not fun." Grover whimpered.

**Medusa was about to lunge at him when I yelled, "Hey!"**

**I advanced on her, which wasn't easy, holding a sword and a glass ball. If she charged, I'd have a hard time defending myself.**

**But she let me approach-twenty feet, ten feet.**

**I could see the reflection of her face now. Surely it wasn't really that ugly. The green swirls of the gazing ball must be distorting it, making it look worse.**

"Athena had quite an imagination." Zeus said.

Athena blushed and turned away from her Father's playful smirk.

**"You wouldn't harm an old woman, Percy," she crooned. "I know you wouldn't."**

**I hesitated, fascinated by the face I saw reflected in the glass-the eyes that seemed to burn straight through the green tint, making my arms go weak.**

**From the cement grizzly, Grover moaned, "Percy, don't listen to her!"**

**Medusa cackled. "Too late."**

**She lunged at me with her talons.**

**I slashed up with my sword, heard a sickening shlock!, then a hiss like wind rushing out of a cavern-the sound of a monster disintegrating.**

"Thank gods." Poseidon said.

**Something fell to the ground next to my foot. It took all my willpower not to look. I could feel warm ooze soaking into my sock, little dying snake heads tugging at my shoelaces.**

"Impressive" Jason said.

**"Oh, yuck," Grover said. His eyes were still tightly closed, but I guess he could hear the thing gurgling and steaming. "Mega-yuck."**

**Annabeth came up next to me, her eyes fixed on the sky. She was holding Medusa's black veil. She said, "Don't move."**

**Very, very carefully, without looking down, she knelt and draped the monster's head in black cloth, then picked it up. It was still dripping green juice.**

**"Are you okay?" she asked me, her voice trembling.**

**"Yeah," I decided, though I felt like throwing up my double cheeseburger. "Why didn't … why didn't the head evaporate?"**

**"Once you sever it, it becomes a spoil of war," she said. "Same as your minotaur horn. But don't unwrap the head. It can still petrify you."**

**Grover moaned as he climbed down from the grizzly statue. He had a big welt on his forehead. His green rasta cap hung from one of his little goat horns, and his fake feet had been knocked off his hooves. The magic sneakers were flying aimlessly around his head.**

**"The Red Baron," I said. "Good job, man."**

**He managed a bashful grin. "That really was not fun, though. Well, the hitting-her-with-a-stick part, that was fun. But crashing into a concrete bear? Not fun."**

**He snatched his shoes out of the air. I recapped my sword. Together, the three of us stumbled back to the warehouse.**

**We found some old plastic grocery bags behind the snack counter and double-wrapped Medusa's head. We plopped it on the table where we'd eaten dinner and sat around it, too exhausted to speak.**

**Finally I said, "So we have Athena to thank for this monster?"**

Athena looked at Percy.

"Sorry!' Percy said quickly.

**Annabeth flashed me an irritated look. "Your dad, actually. Don't you remember? Medusa was Poseidon's girlfriend. They decided to meet in my mother's temple. That's why Athena turned her into a monster. Medusa and her two sisters who had helped her get into the temple, they became the three gorgons. That's why Medusa wanted to slice me up, but she wanted to preserve you as a nice statue. She's still sweet on your dad. You probably reminded her of him."**

"Sorry again." Poseidon said.

**My face was burning. "Oh, so now it's my fault we met Medusa."**

**Annabeth straightened. In a bad imitation of my voice, she said: "'It's just a photo, Annabeth. What's the harm?'"**

**"Forget it," I said. "You're impossible."**

**"You're insufferable."**

**"You're-"**

"You two are just like Hera and Zeus!" Aphrodite giggled.

Hera and Zeus blushed. Percy and Annabeth smiled.

"Hera and Zeus fight like that and they-"

"READ!" Zeus and Hera yelled even more red.

**"Hey!" Grover interrupted. "You two are giving me a migraine, and satyrs don't even get migraines. What are we going to do with the head?"**

**I stared at the thing. One little snake was hanging out of a hole in the plastic. The words printed on the side of the bag said: WE APPRECIATE YOUR BUSINESS!**

**I was angry, not just with Annabeth or her mom, but with all the gods for this whole quest, for getting us blown off the road and in two major fights the very first day out from camp. At this rate, we'd never make it to L.A. alive, much less before the summer solstice.**

**What had Medusa said?**

**Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear. You would be better off as a statue.**

**I got up. "I'll be back."**

**"Percy," Annabeth called after me. "What are you-"**

**I searched the back of the warehouse until I found Medusa's office. Her account book showed her six most recent sales, all shipments to the Underworld to decorate Hades and Persephone's garden. According to one freight bill, the Underworld's billing address was DOA Recording Studios, West Hollywood, California. I folded up the bill and stuffed it in my pocket.**

Hades whistled as everyone looked at him.

"Persephone can't grow anything, and I'm working on that, but for now, we use the statues." Hades said.

**In the cash register I found twenty dollars, a few golden drachmas, and some packing slips for Hermes Overnight Express, each with a little leather bag attached for coins. I rummaged around the rest of the office until I found the right-size box.**

**I went back to the picnic table, packed up Medusa's head, and filled out a delivery slip:**

**The Gods**

**Mount Olympus**

**600th Floor,**

**Empire State Building**

**New York, NY**

**With best wishes,**

**PERCY JACKSON**

"WHAT?!" the gods yelled.

Percy laughed nervously.

**"They're not going to like that," Grover warned. "They'll think you're impertinent."**

"Yes we do." Zeus growled.

**I poured some golden drachmas in the pouch. As soon as I closed it, there was a sound like a cash register. The package floated off the table and disappeared with a pop!**

**"I am impertinent," I said.**

**I looked at Annabeth, daring her to criticize.**

**She didn't. She seemed resigned to the fact that I had a major talent for ticking off the gods. "Come on," she muttered. "We need a new plan."**

"LUNCH!" Apollo and Hermes yelled running out.


End file.
